Almost 100 jobs lost as construction firm crashes into administration

Almost 100 jobs have been lost after a well-known South West construction firm was forced to call in the administrators.

GWKS, which is based in Bridgwater, has fallen victim to the tough trading conditions and is being wound down.

Last year the business, which had a turnover of £27m, said it was coping well with rising costs and inflation.

GWKS, which trades as G Works Construction, specialised in groundworks and has had a number of high-profile clients including Amazon and GKN in Filton.

It operates across the South West and is well-known in the construction industry.

This morning it emerged that EY has been called in to oversee the winding down of the business.

Lucy Winterborne and Dan Hurd, of EY-Parthenon’s Turnaround and Restructuring Strategy team have been appointed as joint administrators.

GWKS Ltd is a groundworks and civil engineering company principally focused on site preparation for customers across the South West.

The company employed 109 people however it was necessary to make 88 redundancies when the firm entered into administration.

The joint administrators will be undertaking an orderly winding down of the company and will look to realise the company’s assets for the benefit of creditors.

Lucy Winterborne said: “Rising operating costs, supply chain challenges and labour shortages combined with the Covid-19 pandemic and wider geopolitical disruption has had a significant impact on the financial performance of the Company.

“Our priorities as joint administrators are to protect the interests of the Company’s creditors and to support the impacted employees who will be offered appropriate advice and support.”

The Company’s subsidiary, G Works Surfacing Limited, is not in administration.

According the last accounts filed with Companies House the Bridgwater firm,  which specialises in groundworks, had a turnover of £27m and made a profit of £432,000 last year.

According to its latest set of accounts the firm was coping with the current tough trading conditions.

A statement from the last set of accounts painted a positive picture for the business in the face of tough trading conditions.

The statement from the directors said: “After managing to maintain a stable trading activity throughout the Covid pandemic we emerged in a market with growing demand that presented many opportunities for new work.

“Our reputation in the South West as a reliable and experienced groundworks and civil engineering contractor has and continues to generate much repeat work with large main contractors.

“The directors adopted a steady and cautious approach throughout the year when considering projects at the tendering stage ensuring the type of project would match our key strengths and experience.

“The significant inflationary effecting both labour and material costs were,  and remain a constant concern in our tendering process and ongoing management of project costs against budget.

“We do not see the current pressure on costs and the difficult economic climate changing in the short term but the directors remain confident that with our robust cost management and controls we can maintain  our profit margins going forward.

“Our group cashflows have been managed  well and we are fortunate to have well established trading relationships with our many suppliers, subcontractors and agencies with whom we have a mutual understanding and respect of cashflow demands and the economic pressures we are all facing.”