It came as a bit of a shock when I visited contractjournal.com (see link below) to see that Wrekin had gone into administration earlier today
![Crying or Very Sad :cry:](./images/smilies/icon_cry.gif)
It will be a great shame if Wrekin cannot pull through this, as although they had their fair share of ups and downs in recent years thanks to the (alledged) weak management of the founding Frain family, it seemed that under the current ownership of the Tamar Group they had turned the corner and were being a successfull civils, building and rail contractor.
The construction industry would be a lot better if it had more firms like Wrekin as they directly employ their staff (including labour), use their own plant and have a reputation for being non-adversal,innovative and delivering high quality work . They were also one of the founding firms involved in the Considerate Constructors scheme
I live in the West Midlands so I've seen many schemes that Wrekin have undertaken and their approach sets them far-apart and way-above many construction firms (larger and smaller).
I once spoke to a Wrekin employee who talked of the company's family atmosphere, and how he'd been at the firm over 20 years and had never thought of leaving!
This somes up the whole sorry situation:
''We [Wrekin]are owed in excess of £2 million by a major private client, a blue chip company, which has been awaiting funds from Fortis Bank since before Christmas and there is an outstanding amount of around £2.8 million owed by the Defences Estate which despite assurances that it would be looked into urgently, that has still not been paid. It’s cash we have run out of effectively''Links:
http://www.contractjournal.com/Articles ... lamed.htmlWrekin profile:
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/1 ... recession/http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/1 ... irm-folds/http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/1 ... e-bankers/