Half-built Wakefield shopping centre goes bust

A £200m shopping centre scheme in Wakefield has been placed into administration with contractor Shepherd Construction half way through building it.

KPMG have been appointed administrators on the Trinity Walk site after Anglo Irish Bank pulled its funding for the scheme. The collapse of the comes despite last ditch attempts by the public sector to keep it going, with a £7m emergency funding package agreed in recent weeks.

Shepherd were unable to comment immediately on the impact to its business of the collapse of the scheme, which was being developed by a joint venture between Crief and Manchester-based mixed-use developer Modus. It has been reported that Shepherd had not been paid "for some time" for its work, which stopped at the start of the month, and previously had 185 workers on the scheme.

KPMG confirmed it was managing the administration of the scheme. Press reports say the collapse comes despite the fact the developers had secured Debenhams and Sainsburys as anchor tenants and the premises was 75% pre-let.

Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised earlier this year after being hit hard by the global banking crisis and the decline in the Irish property market.

A joint statement on behalf of the Trinity Walk partner organisations said:

“Work is continuing to secure the future completion of the Trinity Walk scheme.

“Despite last week’s news, we all remain committed to doing everything possible to see this important project through and get work re-started on the site.

“A number of possible options are now being investigated and we will issue a further statement as soon as we can.”