Carillion project back on site

A project being undertaken by the fallen UK contractor Carillion is said to be back on site ­– claiming to be one of the first major private contracts to be operating again, within two weeks of the Carillion collapse.

At the Angel Gardens project in Manchester, Apache Capital and Moda have engaged sister company Caddick Construction.

Carillion was put into compulsory liquidation on 15 January, having failed in its attempt to persuade stakeholders, including the UK government, to provide help.

Now, on the £154 million (€175.03 million) Angel Gardens scheme, Caddick Construction will be hiring 20 former Carillion employees.

The project is described as one of the country’s biggest residential schemes outside London, and the move is estimated to have saved around 500 jobs on site, protecting around 30 sub-contractor companies previously working under Carillion.

Moda and Apache Capital said they had put contingency plans in place last summer, and that the swift move had ensured there would be no material impact on the project’s cost or delivery timeframe.

Caddick Construction will now act as construction manager, and co-ordinate existing subcontractors across the 35-storey, 466-home build-to-rent project.

Carillion started work on Angel Gardens in January 2016.

Richard Jackson, managing director and co-founder of Apache Capital, said, “It was critical to Apache Capital that, as soon as we became aware of financial difficulties of Carillion in summer 2017, we implemented our contingency plans to ensure that we protected the interests of our investors and banking partner PBB (Deutsche Pfandbriefbank).

“As a result, no loss of money or time will be suffered, job security is ensured to former Carillion staff, financial security on this project is secured for our sub-contractors, and onsite works have recommenced within two weeks to minimise delays, and we will continue to deliver the project within budget.”

Meanwhile, Carillion’s pension deficit is being reported to be at least £990 million (€1.12 billion), with Unite, the UK’s largest union, calling for all possible legal avenues to be explored to recoup money and for the introduction of stronger laws to prevent similar cases in the future.