Work re-starts on stalled city centre development following £8m investment

Liverpool developer Elliot Group has confirmed it has recommenced construction at the partially-completed Paramount student halls site on the city centre’s London Road which it bought in July from administrators.

The company is to invest £8m to complete the scheme and has retained two of the principal sub-contractors who lost money when the previous developer collapsed.

WDS Commercial and BAK-UK will be part of a team managed by main contractor Exchange Construction to complete the 488-room development.

“They’re good companies that took a hit when the original developer got into trouble and I wanted to give them an opportunity to recover some of their losses,” said Elliot Lawless of Elliot Group.

Explaining the complexities around completing the scheme, Lawless said: “Parts of the building have been exposed for a long time to the elements so there’s a lot of investigative work to do to understand what issues this may pose for us.

“It was built using different contractors and advisors to my usual team and so we also need to better understand their methodologies and materials. Everyone’s putting a shift in and we’re cracking on.”

As part of this work it has been identified that insulation and other materials behind the cladding needs to be removed and replaced with ones complying with the latest fire regulations.

The cladding itself is already compliant, although different rivets will be used to fix it to the new railing system holding the insulation panels in place.

The development, adjacent to Lime Street railway station, commenced in 2014 and a number of homes were completed and occupied. Exchange Construction has been established by Elliot Group to finish the scheme, which will be retained by the company as an investment.

The development includes 150 basement car parking spaces and several ground floor commercial units.