But that doesn't mean there is not room for a little bit of knockabout tradie humour.

If you look close enough at an entry gate to the construction site off Eastern Valley Way, there is an iconic London telephone box, in all its bright-red glory.

It seems the gate guard was getting sick of being rained on and a subcontractor, Maurizio Rao, from Alto Scaffolding at Hume, came to the rescue, providing him with - what else? - a London telephone box.

"I did a favour for a friend and he paid me by giving me a phone box," Maurizio explaining how he got it. "It's a genuine, cast-metal one."

He was happy to hand over the phone box for the Geocon guard to "give him a little home".

Geocon director of construction, Damon Smith, reckons the telephone box is now a fixture of the site.

"It's not going anywhere," he said.

But Rao begged to differ.

"It'll stay there for as long as they need it but it will be coming back," he said, with a laugh.

"I told them if they don't return it, they have to give me an apartment, so it's probably in their interest to give it back."