Fears grow as £83m-turnover contractor halts onsite work

An £83m-turnover contractor has left clients searching for replacement builders after walking away from several jobs.

PDR Construction Ltd, of Hessle, near Hull, in East Yorkshire, has stopped work on several sites across the country, prompting fears it has ceased trading. No administration notice has been filed by the company, but it did not respond to several calls and emails from Construction News throughout Tuesday and its website and Twitter account have been taken offline.

A winding-up petition was lodged against it at court on Tuesday of last week. One subcontractor from a closed site said: “It [PDR] was on the job up to Christmas but we haven’t seen it since.”

PDR works across commercial, industrial, retail and residential properties as a main contractor. Its current projects include an Everyman cinema and restaurants in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, a new GP’s surgery in Stroud, Gloucestershire, the headquarters of Beal Homes in Hessle, as well as a 90-home project in Walthamstow, east London, for developer Pocket Living and 122 homes in Edgware, north-west London, for housing association Network Homes.

A Pocket Living spokesperson said: “Although work has ceased momentarily at Forest Road, Pocket Living has secured the site and is reviewing alternative contractor options to ensure the development continues to deliver the much-needed 90 high-quality affordable homes in Waltham Forest.” The job was worth £13m according to data provider Glenigan.

Network Homes has been contacted for comment.

The Central Northallerton Development Company, a joint venture between Hambleton District Council and developer Wykeland Group, is the client for the firm’s Everyman cinema job. A statement from the development company said: “We have been notified that PDR Construction, the principal contractor for the final phase of the Treadmills scheme (pictured), can no longer fulfil its obligations under the construction contract.”

The JV added it was committed to delivering the full regeneration project and is preparing to find a new contractor to complete the works.

Beal Homes chief executive Richard Beal said: “We are disappointed and saddened that PDR Construction, the principal contractor for our new head office, is not in a position to fulfil the contract.” He said the housebuilder has taken direct control of the project and the impact on subcontractors and suppliers should be minimal, with the “vast majority” of onsite workers continuing in their roles.

In its latest published set of accounts for the year ended 30 April 2020, PDR made a £354,418 pre-tax loss on £82.7m turnover. In its prior year, it posed £69.8m turnover and made a pre-tax profit of £636,402.

The accounts stated that its growth was 10 per cent lower than it had expected, owing to the impact of the pandemic on its contracts. Director Paul Dransfield noted that the firm was posting its first loss for a decade and that it had stripped out £1m of overheads in order to manage an expected fall in turnover. He did not provide details of those savings measures but noted that, as a management contractor, it can scale up and down and would be “poised to react again to any further downturn”.

PDR had 115 staff on average in its 2020 financial year. It was founded in late 1992, briefly being called Victoret Construction before becoming PDR.