Lend Lease to build halted Olympic housing

Lend Lease has been lined up by the Olympic Delivery Authority to complete construction of one of the blocks at the Olympics Athletes’ Village after contractor P Elliott went into administration.

Work on the N14 tower block ground to a halt last week as a result of P Elliott being placed into administration. There was initial speculation that the ODA was considering the appointment of a contractor from the four other firms working on the village.

A spokesman for the ODA however has confirmed that Lend Lease is their preferred contractor to take over work on the block. However, sources said the construction and project management arm of Lend Lease formerly known as Bovis had already taken on the employement of P Elliott employees and promised to pay subcontractors.

The ODA spokesman said: “Subject to ongoing discussions with receivers, the plan is for Lend Lease to take over P Elliott’s block,” he said.

“We intend to retain the current workforce, allowing them to continue work on site under our development manager Lend Lease.”

The ODA has never made public the contract value for individual village blocks on the £711m development, though they are thought to be between £30-60m each. Work on the N14 block is at an advanced stage with three quarters of the project complete.

Lend Lease is overseeing the whole village construction, as well as directly building five of the Village’s 11 blocks. Galliford Try, John Sisk and Ardmore are the other contractors working on the village.

The ODA also confirmed they were in talks with P Elliott’s administrators KPMG to allow works on the plot to resume as soon as possible. KPMG were appointed as administrators to P Elliott after the Irish owned company racked up debts of over £435m. The company is believed to owe sub-contractors almost £20m.  

In 2009 P Elliott employed 230 people across the UK and Ireland. The company laid off most of its staff before Easter. The collapse of P Elliott will also have an impact on the completion of a 315 bed hospital in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.