Bullivant squashes talk of 150 redundancies

Bullivant has flattened the suggestion that up to 150 employees could be laid off.

A local paper, the Burton Mail, has run with the figure based on its contact with employees of the Drakelow-based groundwork specialist group.

Rob Brown, managing director, was not available to give his take on the developments, nor was anyone else in Bullivant prepared to take a call.

Instead, the group issued an existing statement put out through its public relations company Beattie Communications.

The declaration stated: “Due to the significant downturn in the market, many house-builders have had to postpone works on sites. Despite our efforts over recent weeks, our costs have not changed significantly.       

“We are intending to commence a process of consultation with employee representatives on 7 June 2008 to consider if redundancies can be avoided and, if that is not possible, reduce the number of redundancies and mitigate the impact of them.

"We would stress that no decisions have yet been made and misleading figures only serve to cause distress amongst our valued workforce.”

In a longer statement published by the local newspaper, Bullivant added: “Staff have been given a period of three days to appoint staff members to represent them. It is impossible to put a timescale on how long that consultation period will last.”

The paper added that staff face disciplinary action if they speak to the press.