Durkan losses widen as firm says building safety delays have led to cuts at contracting business

Fire safety remediation and redundancy costs helped keep Durkan firmly in the red last year as the firm said building safety delays were behind job cuts at its contracting business.

The firm said spending nearly £15m on fire safety and a further £680,000 on job losses at its contracting division meant pre-tax losses widened to £8.3m in the year to November 2024 from £4.6m last time.

Durkan said it made a £133,000 operating profit – before exceptional items – from a £3.8m operating loss in 2023. Turnover during the period fell 19% to £138m.

In its accounts filed at Companies House for Durkan’s contracting business, Durkan Ltd, the firm said that it was focussing on growing its recently launched regeneration business with the move leading to job losses at its contracting arm.

In a note accompanying its accounts, Durkan said it was “assess[ing] the commercial risks of its design and build contracting business” because of “delays in obtaining regulatory sign-offs under the Building Safety Act, and a consequential slowdown in customer demand as Housing Associations and Local Authorities”.

It added: “Accordingly, the company is focussing on developing the regeneration business going forward, and whilst every effort is made to redeploy staff across the Durkan Group, there have been redundancies in contracting as projects complete and the division reduces in size.”

Durkan, which operates across London and the Home Counties, has previously said the regeneration division will provide a one stop shop for a host of services including asset regeneration, planned maintenance, compliance services, including damp and mould, and fire remediation.

The business is being headed by managing director Dan Germann whose CV includes spells at Keepmoat Regeneration, Apollo Group and Equans UK.

Meanwhile, in accounts filed for Durkan Holdings, which includes the firm’s housing and regeneration arms, turnover was up 12% to £192m which the firm said was down to the performance of the two businesses.

Housing revenue was up 21% to £72m while income at the regen arm was up 30% to £22m.

In a note accompanying the accounts, chairman Daniel Durkan said it was likely “the contracting division will reduce in size” in the future.

Fire safety costs and provisions on legacy construction jobs meant pre-tax loses widened to £7.5m from £4m for the year to November 2024. Net cash at the year-end was up from £31m to £35m.