Sunderland Council vows to complete Proctor & Matthews housing after contractor collapses

Sunderland City Council says it ‘remains committed’ to finishing a half-built housing scheme by Proctor & Matthews and MawsonKerr following the collapse of its contractor TolentConstruction work started last month on the 132-home Vaux Housing project – the first of four quarters being delivered as part of the wider, council-backed 33ha Riverside Sunderland development which will ultimately deliver 1,000 homes. The steel and timber frames for the first apartment buildings had already been installed.But the scheme’s future was thrown into doubt after Tyneside construction company Tolent went into administration . The contractor closed its sites on Friday (10 February) and made 313 staff redundant. The administrator, Interpath Advisory, said 91 Tolent employees had been retained to help it ‘explore any possibility of a sale of the businesses and their assets’.The Vaux site on the edge of the city centre next to the River Wear was formerly occupied by a brewery and has been subject to numerous development proposals over the years. Tolent was appointed to the scheme in June last year.Speaking about the future of the Proctor & Matthews and MawsonKerr scheme, a council spokesperson said: ‘We are in a dialogue with [Tolent’s] administrators and remain committed to continuing with our ambitious plans for the Vaux Housing site going forward.’The team behind another Tolent-built scheme – the £85.5 million Milburngate development in Durham, designed by FaulknerBrowns – said the contractor’s demise would ‘not impact on the project’ as its first phase concludes.A spokesperson for FaulknerBrowns said: ‘We have been saddened to hear the news about Tolent, who have been involved with many major projects in the North East over the years, including phase one of our Milburngate development in Durham.‘Fortunately, the project is very near to completion, and the developers will continue the final stages by engaging directly with subcontractors and relevant Tolent staff to finish construction work.’But Interpath has said the riverside scheme was partly responsible for the company’s failure, describing it as a ‘significantly loss-making’ development that had a ‘profound impact’ on its working capital.It added that Tolent, which was based in Gateshead and had offices in Leeds, Stockton-on-Tees and Shotton Colliery, had faced ‘significant challenges’ in recent years. These included the rising costs of raw materials, supply chain issues, material and labour shortages, and the collapse of a number of developers, contractors and supply chain partners.Among the other projects potentially affected by the collapse is the new £3 million RNLI lifeboat station at Cleethorpes designed by BGA Architects.According to local reports, workers were seen moving equipment off site over the weekend.An RNLI spokesperson said the organisation ‘remained committed to ensuring that the new lifeboat station at Cleethorpes will be completed as soon as possible’ adding ‘It’s important to remember that the current lifeboat station and the charity’s D-class lifeboat remains on-service and ready to respond to save lives at sea.’