Tolent: Construction firm collapses into administration with 313 jobs lost

Tolent had worked on the multimillion-pound Hadrian's Tower in Newcastle

A major construction firm has gone into administration with the immediate loss of 313 jobs.

Tolent, based on Gateshead's Team Valley, also has offices in Shotton Colliery, County Durham, Stockton and Leeds, employing 404 people.

It had been working on developments including the £85.5m Milburngate in Durham, which administrators called "significantly loss-making".

They said 91 jobs had been retained during the administration process.

The company, which was founded in 1983 by John Wood, had been involved in high-profile multimillion-pound projects across the construction sector including Riverside Sunderland and Newcastle's tallest building, Hadrian's Tower.

James Lumb and Howard Smith from Interpath Advisory were appointed joint administrators to Tolent plc and five of its operating subsidiaries.

'Wafer-thin margins'

Mr Lumb said Tolent had been "battling severe headwinds" like many across the UK's building and construction sector, including "spiralling costs", labour shortages and the loss of other companies in its supply chain, "all of which unfortunately resulted in one of its major contracts becoming loss-making".

He said many construction firms were finding access to finance had "tightened" across the sector, following the "tapering off" of the government's Covid-19 support schemes, and "in the wake of recent economic volatility".

"Additionally, after the annual Christmas shut-downs and a cold December, the months of January and February often bring with them a painful cash crunch," he added.

"In a sector which typically operates on wafer-thin margins, this can often prove to be insurmountable, and unfortunately, so has been the case for Tolent."

He said the priority over the coming days was to work with key stakeholder to assess options for each of the companies, including what to do with ongoing contracts and live projects.

Employees who have lost their jobs will be given support to be able to make claims from the Redundancy Payments Office, he added.