700 staff face redundancy despite Connaught deal

UP to 700 people could lose their jobs at social housing maintenance firm Connaught Partnerships despite Tamworth-based Lovell Partnerships acquiring the majority of its contracts.

Lovell Partnerships, which is the affordable housing division of regeneration firm Morgan Sindall Group, has bought the contracts and transferred around 2,500 staff from Connaught Partnerships in deal worth £28m.

Connaught Partnerships is headquartered in Leeds and employs 4,400 staff across the UK, providing maintenance services to social housing associations.

It went into administration alongside its Exeter-based parent Connaught on Wednesday.

KPMG, the administrators of Connaught Partnerships, confirmed the redundancies but said, due to the mobile nature of the staff, they were unable to give further details on the locations of those affected at this stage.

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It added in a statement that while it made “every effort to communicate with staff in person, the large number of staff and wide geographic spread across the country necessitated a series of telephone calls” to inform them of the redundancies.

Brian Green, restructuring partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “Immediately following appointment we conducted a commercial review of the staffing needs of the business and shortly thereafter took the decision to make around 700 staff redundant.

“The administrators continue to negotiate the novation of the remaining contracts to other providers and remain hopeful that further staff within Connaught Partnerships will be transferred to alternative providers.”

Connaught Environmental and Connaught Compliance continue to trade as normal.