Wrekin Construction: 20 ex-employees strike gold

Twenty of Wrekin Construction’s redundant workers have been snapped up by Enterprise which has been brought in by Staffordshire County Council to progress the bulk of Wrekin’s unfinished highway schemes.

These projects were abandoned when Wrekin went into administration two weeks ago and its £11m ruby saga started to unfold.

Wrekin’s days of working on Staffordshire roads could have been numbered regardless of the firm’s sudden collapse.

A report on the This is business – Staffordshire website quotes Richard Higgs, corporate director of development services at the county council as reporting that even before Wrekin's collapse, there was a plan “to discuss replacing the contract with that firm, which would have expired this year anyway”.

Higgs said: “Because of the way the highways department worked with the private sector, delays caused by Wrekin's problems had been kept to a minimum.

“We had a contingency plan in place to cover just such an eventuality. There has been a lot of frenetic activity since the middle of last week, and as of Tuesday, almost all of the work is continuing under the auspices of Enterprise.

“That was a remarkable effort, and if we didn't have the organisation in place, it could have led to very serious delays around the county. In the end the works were delayed by just one week.”

Enterprise hasn’t stepped into Wrekin’s shoes completely and a project in Silverdale Road remains suspended. It involves widening the junction and resurfacing the road, and was originally due to be completed in May.

A result of the deal with Enterprise is that in future, all schemes up to £500,000 will be delivered through its new contract, while larger projects would be procured through the Highways Agency Framework Contract.

The county council says that the switch to Enterprise will result in savings of about £150,000 a year.