Work on six of Greenwich Council’s new housing projects has been halted after the contractor building them ceased to trade.
Helix Construct Ltd, based in Newbury, Berkshire, announced that it was planning to appoint administrators two weeks ago.
The trade website Construction Enquirer reported that Helix, which worked on schemes across London and the Home Counties, had fallen into difficulties after delayed starts to many of its contracts.
Helix had picked up contracts to construct homes as part of the Greenwich Builds programme for new council homes.
Among the affected sites is Lemonwell Drive, off Bexley Road in Eltham, where Helix was building a block of nine flats. Five other sites are affected, but the council would not say which they were.
A council spokesperson told The Greenwich Wire: “Greenwich Builds uses a variety of contractors to diversify and manage risk across its programme, and as a council we are committed to completing these homes.
“We have secured all sites and are reviewing each scheme individually, and will be working alongside the administrator to find solutions as quickly as possible. All neighbours have been informed, and we will share updates on each scheme as soon as we have them.
“Our 1,750-home Greenwich Builds programme is still on track, having now delivered 1,041 new council homes for local people on the housing register, with hundreds more under construction.”
Greenwich Builds began in 2018 with an ambition to begin work on 750 homes within four years and by 2022 this was expanded to 1,750 homes with no target date. But some of the projects have been hit by long delays, and in 2024 the council accidentally revealed that it was paying an extra £11 million to finish a number of projects after a subcontractor went out of business.
The Greenwich Builds scheme has since been altered to allow the council to buy homes from developers after it decided that buying in bulk would be better value for money than the small sites that had been previously been earmarked.
Earlier this month the council confirmed plans to buy flats from Berkeley Homes in Kidbrooke Village and the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, first reported by The Greenwich Wire last year, while the first tenants have also moved into recently-completed blocks in Greenwich Millennium Village agreed under a separate deal.
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