rockershovel

having had experience of the turn-over of small companies and company groups in the construction industry, I don't believe it is useful to speculate on this from the information available. I'd be curious to know what other companies this gentleman owns ( oh all right, no I wouldn't, I really don't care at all ) because the newspaper article gives the impression of someone operating a group of companies - 20 employees and a fleet of machines worth £3m are mentioned - and this is nothing unusual in that sector. I'd hardly be surprised for those same employees to turn up in one of his other companies, or to find that they were self-employed or agency staff, or one of a whole range of things. I also note that the term used is 'administration' not 'receivership' which is rather a different matter. The information simply isn't there.

well, quite so. If a company employing seven goes into administration for the sake of £25,000 it is probably past saving anyway. It's also a general comment on the construction industry that the turn-over of small contractors is pretty hideous, and jobs which disappear under one name have a habit of turning up under another. I also note from one of the other newspaper articles, reference to £3m-worth of plant and 20 jobs under that name. I don't believe it's useful to speculate on this matter

Railways are curious things. Then again, so are local authorities. That said, it's also true that long-dormant minerals rights have been known to be re-activated, to the displeasure of the local farmers; nonetheless, they will have at some point signed a deed incorporating that very provision. Access to gas pipeline, water main or overhead cable routes - a statutory provision, albeit rarely invoked - tends to be highly acrimonious. Just because you have been ignoring something, or deeming it to be irrelevant, it doesn't mean it isn't there. The local authorities put a lot of money into that line, once upon a time, and the requirement to get some kind of return hasn't gone away. one thing which always causes friction with major construction projects is that benefitting the local economy doesn't necessarily mean that the overall structure of the local economy remains the same. It usually doesn't. I saw this in Cornwall in the 70s, when the establishment and expansion of mines like Wheal Jane and Geevor meant that incoming labour ( many of them former lead, flourspar and ironstone miners from the North East ) was preferred over the local labour which didn't have the right skills and at times, appeared intent on attempting to impose local practices. I saw the same thing in Aberdeen when the local unions were frozen out in favour of incoming redundant shipyard workers from Tyneside and the Clyde; the local men takimng the view that the benefits were theirs by right, and the investors feeling otherwise. Generally speaking, the people who have made money in Aberdeen - and there have been some serious profits made - have not been the businesses who were originally there, precisely because they were the least willing to adapt. I've seen coal miners ranting and abusing at contract workers, calling them 'job-selling b*stards' and the rest of it, but simultaneously saying that these men had no 'right' to work at that place or even in that industry... even if it left them excluded from work entirely it's all a matter of your point of view

It was the biggest pipeline project since the early 90s - the Trans-Lincolnshire line from Immingham to Peterborough is longer - but it's quite conventional in construction and come to that, it is a duplication of the existing route, not a completely new route at all, whatever the local press may have printed at the time. There were some wondrous things to be seen over planning permission for 'barn conversions' ... I used to go out and establish the lines, define heavywall pipe or minor variations in the alignment 'according', and there were 'conversions' which were barely visible as grassed-over foundations in places. the main problems tend to revolve around locals who tend to expect 'oil rig' wages for local work practices, which they are almost invariably disappointed in.

I spent two years in S Wales on a pipeline contract a few years ago and we had no end of trouble with the locals. Had the same thing in Aberdeen in the offshore oil development days, the world had moved on and they didn't want it, or wanted to control it for their own reasons, or simply resented that people were coming in and bringing things which they couldn't get locally. life can be like that