By the standards of most two year periods over the last two decades or more, this has been a quiet period in terms of construction work. The last biennial report saw the conclusion of the two of the biggest construction projects in Tate's history: Tate Modern and the Centenary Development at Tate Britain: it anticipated further work at Tate Modern and the commencement of design activity for a Collection Centre to complement the Tate Store in Southwark. Further work has taken place at Tate Modern and, through a final distribution of funds from the Millennium Commission, a substantial construction exercise - the Arrivals Project - has been designed by our architects Herzog & de Meuron. Drawing on the lessons of several years of operation, the project will provide a spectacular new shop at the north entrance, freeing the existing shop for a programme of contemporary art, and will open up the concourse at level four, the middle level of galleries where temporary exhibitions are staged, providing improved freedom of movement and longer views of the City around the espresso bar. Having appointed Grimshaw Architects to design the new Collection Centre, we did not progress to design whilst the brief and purpose of the centre was reviewed to give a greater degree of accessibility to the stored collection whilst taking account of the changing nature of and therefore requirements for storage of the contemporary collection.

However, if the projects mentioned in the last report have taken longer than anticipated to come to fruition, this has not been an inactive period in terms of laying the groundwork for future development initiatives. At Bankside, the arrival of Tate Modern has generated a cauldron of development activity and we have been compelled to bring forward our plans for the further development of the site to ensure that opportunities to develop a further phase of the building, once the electricity substation which occupies the southern third of the building has been relocated, are safeguarded. There has been an intensive period of consultation with our developer neighbours, following which planning permission for an extension of Tate Modern is being sought. At St Ives, following a number of feasibility studies, a proposal to developer a further building on the site of a car park above the existing Tate St Ives has been adopted by a partnership of Cornwall County Council (who own the gallery building), Tate and Penwith District Council. A competition to select a design team will take place in the latter part of 2004.

The success of the Centenary Development at Tate Britain has encouraged us to consider similar upgrading of the front half of the building, some of which has received little or no major capital maintenance for several decades. The first step will be the appointment of a new design team to bring the site master plan up to date before embarking on the improvements.

At Tate Liverpool, the historic building continues to require substantial maintenance and a series of modest projects are in train. The designation of Liverpool as Capital of Culture 2008 has brought the additional challenge of maintaining the prominence of the Albert Dock as a destination for visitors whilst major new developments are in train elsewhere in the city. We are working with our neighbours, developers and with various public agencies to see what might be done.

If the aftermath of a series of major projects brings a period of evaluation and study for the Projects team, for the Estates team newly-delivered projects bring a period of intense operational activity as the new buildings are managed in 'normal' mode for the first time. There has been much to learn from the brand-new operational set up at Tate Modern that can be applied across the whole estate and an initial period of devolved facilities management for our London sites has been replaced by a centrally administered regime that can benefit from various economies of scale and of flexible working between sites. This has also been a period where compliance with new legislation and regulations has also required considerable central support to the individual galleries. The pause in major projects has also allowed time for a thorough appraisal of our building and engineering assets using a life cycle costing approach to inform our future capital maintenance programme which will continue to be integrated with Tate's major new project activity.