Research By R3 Reveals Concerns About Sector

New findings that around a third of businesses in the construction sector in the North West could be facing the risk of failure in the coming months are unsurprising as the economic climate continues to show little sign of improvement, according to an insolvency expert.

According to the latest research by R3, more than 6,000 construction firms in the region are facing problems including a lack of finance for development and also issues arising from cuts in public spending.

The figure is higher than the regional average across all sectors, which suggested one in four businesses were at risk.

Chris Jones, a Manchester-based insolvency and corporate recovery expert at Irwin Mitchell, said such trends were not unexpected.

He outlined: “These figures are not a major surprise considering the difficult economic conditions that businesses are continuing to face, while the findings also reflected some of the work that we have seen in the past six months.

“It is an unfortunate that that, typically, as money gets tighter more payments to firms tend to be disputed. The overall knock-on effect of this is that such pressures come down hard on those who are unable to manage cashflow.”