District to deliver building contracts after contractor goes into administration

Bolsover District Council has said it will take over a number of building contracts after the contractor it used went into administration.

Woodhead Construction announced on 15 September 2022 that it was ceasing trading, wich the council said put contracts like its Bolsover Homes scheme at risk.

“But we stepped in and took the decision to continue to deliver both the live projects and any projects that are planned, without delay,” the district council said.

Bolsover is currently investing £36m in building new council properties including current sites at Langwith and Shirebrook and is working in partnership with Elmton-with-Creswell Parish Council on a new Heritage and Wellbeing Centre.

It said it could confirm all projects would continue as planned.  

Council Leader Steve Fritchley said, “The key thing for me was to keep our building program going to ensure we deliver what we said we would. We have therefore employed the current site managers where appropriate and are talking to the sub-contractors to ensure they are fully engaged to make sure the projects continue.

“Once we learned the contractor was to cease trading we took swift and decisive action to ensure our assets were protected and we could continue to deliver what we had set out to do.

“I am a big believer in the council being in control of its own destiny so we are putting into place plans to ensure we have more control of our future residential and commercial projects.”

According to a report on Construction News, the pressure of fixed-price contracts in a market of price inflation was defined as the “root cause” of the firm’s failure by its directors.

Teresa Westwood, managing director at Robert Woodhead Limited, said directors were “devastated” in making the decision to cease trading.

She said: "Having worked tirelessly to mitigate these issues over recent months, ultimately the business faced a range of cashflow challenges in recent weeks that proved insurmountable and concluded that the company could not continue trading."