What happened

Red Group has taken over the £50m retrofit of 5 Chancery Lane in central London after the scheme's original contractor, Ardmore Construction Group, collapsed into administration, Construction News and Property Week reported. The 105,000 sq ft office building, built in 1910, is being redeveloped to retain its facade and 86% of its existing structure, with the finished scheme pre-assessed to meet BREEAM "Excellent" standards. Red's London division is now expected to complete the work by the first quarter of 2027.

Ardmore, a £344m turnover contractor, fell into administration on 11 June after a Building Liability Order tied to historic fire safety defects at its Admiralty Quarter development in Portsmouth extended liability from the original developer to related Ardmore companies under the Building Safety Act. The ruling hit client confidence, payment terms and certified valuations across Ardmore's live projects hard enough that the group could no longer trade. Around 275 staff were made redundant immediately, with more than 500 roles affected in total. The collapse left roughly ten major London schemes in limbo, including a life sciences campus at King's Cross, hotel conversions in Mayfair and Kensington, and residential schemes in west and east London.

Why it matters

Four months on, 5 Chancery Lane is the clearest sign yet that clients are working through the backlog Ardmore left behind rather than mothballing schemes outright. That matters because a Building Liability Order is a relatively new and increasingly tested mechanism. It shows regulators and courts are willing to pursue related companies for historic safety defects, and clients are responding by moving fast to re-contract rather than wait out the uncertainty.

What it means for your career

If you were on an Ardmore scheme and have been sitting on notice, in a new role, or weighing your options since June, this is the kind of announcement worth tracking scheme by scheme. New contractors taking over part built projects need commercial and operational staff who already understand the building, the client and the specification, which makes site teams with live Ardmore project experience more hireable now than they might expect, not less. Red Group's London division, and others picking up former Ardmore sites, are the first places to look if that applies to you.

More broadly, this is a reminder for anyone managing subcontractor risk or running due diligence on a main contractor that Building Liability Orders are now a real factor in covenant strength, not a theoretical one. Commercial managers and QSs vetting a contractor's financial resilience should be asking specifically about exposure to historic fire safety defects on other schemes, not just current order book and cash position. That question is becoming as standard as asking about retention and payment terms, and being able to answer it well is increasingly part of the commercial director's job.