Bovis Lend Lease is to put 150 staff currently working on the 2012 athletes’ village at risk of redundancy, Building reported.
Staff on the Olympic athletes’ village scheme, which is due to be handed over in early 2012, received an email saying the company is to start a redundancy process on the project.
The athletes’ village, on which Bovis Lend Lease was appointed contractor three years ago, has shielded the contractor’s southern UK business from the worst of the recession.
Building reported that 150 workers will be placed in a collective consultation within weeks although fewer than this number are expected to lose their jobs, as some will be found work elsewhere on the project or other Bovis schemes.
It is understood that about 40 workers will be immediately transferred, with some likely to go to the £150m North East Quadrant project on London’s Euston Road awarded to Bovis by British Land last week.
Meanwhile the Construction Enquirer website reported that Bovis has beaten Sir Robert McAlpine and Mace to win the St James’s Gateway project in London’s Piccadilly. Worth upwards of £40m, it is being developed by Stanhope on behalf of the Crown Estate.
And Bovis has also been confirmed as the main contractor on another London scheme, the £45m remodelling of Tate Britain, Building reported.
The contractor is also thought to be the frontrunner to build the Scottish National Arena, a project worth about £75m, which has also been chased by Balfour Beatty and Sir Robert McAlpine.
Although the project, designed by Foster + Partners for the Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre, is not likely to affect the athletes’ village job cuts, a source close to Bovis suggested it would be a “backbone” for the company’s Scottish operations for the next two years. An appointment is expected imminently.
