Improvement work on council houses
across Richmondshire was suspended this week after the collapse of
contractor, Connaught.
The social housing firm said it had failed to
raise extra funding from lenders and was appointing partners from
KPMG as administrators of Connaught plc and its subsidiary,
Connaught Partnerships Limited.
Connaught won the contract for a rolling
programme of work to improve Richmondshire District Council
properties in February. Estimated to be worth £1
million a year, it aimed to deliver the Council’s five year
improvement programme - and there was also an option for it to
include responsive maintenance work in the future.
The company was the sole contractor for the
work which included completing the Council’s ‘Decent Homes’
programme by December 2010.
“We have suspended work on properties in the
district,” said Richmondshire District Council Assistant Director,
Colin Dales.
“We have been following developments closely
over the past weeks, supporting Connaught by supplying them with
improvement work but keeping the risk to the Council and our
tenants to a minimum.
“We have just completed installing new windows
in homes in Richmond - a low risk improvement - and were about to
start more window replacement work at a sheltered housing scheme in
the town. But until we know the future of Connaught we
will not be releasing any more homes for improvement.
“Our key priority is to keep our tenants up to
date - all affected tenants will receive an update letter within
the next few days.
“And if Connaught goes into administration we
will be looking to put in place an emergency contract in order to
complete our ‘decent homes’ programme.”
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