Daniel Rubin & Partners to administrate development in Everton
The company responsible for a construction scheme in Everton which was been slammed by Liverpool City Council for “failing to meet the minimum standards expected of residential development” has collapsed into administration. Daniel Rubin & Partners will now look to find investors willing to take on the assets.
Plans for the Fox Street Village complex were originally submitted in 2014. The residential development project in Everton, Liverpool, included the conversion of an existing warehouse into apartments along with several new-build blocks. The ambitious plan promised the delivery of 400 flats in total, however it has been beset by problems over the five years since.
Work had stalled at the site in Everton, before earlier in 2019, the project was hit with an enforcement notice by Liverpool City Council, which has raised concerns the apartments were “poorly finished” and represented a fire risk. According to a damning report from the local authority, the scheme “fails to meet the minimum standards expected of residential development.”
Issues ranged from fire safety issues – including the cladding, which has become a major concern since the lethal Grenfell disaster of 2017 – to a lack of basement car and cycle parking; something which had been part of the original planning permission but had never been realised. This, despite claims from project Director Gary Howard in 2018 that 98% of the apartments had been sold.
In fact, several of the planned blocks remain unfinished, missing a scheduled completion date last year by some distance. As a result, Fox Street has suffered financially, and while Howard also claimed the development had “attracted investors from around the world” and hoped it would “form part of a community which people can be proud of”, the development has been placed into administration.
As reported by Place North West, documents submitted to Companies House show administrators from Daniel Rubin & Partners have been appointed at the behest of PH Invest, a mortgage finance company based in London. David Rubin & Partners specialises in business turnaround and rescue, corporate and personal insolvency, forensic accounting, and litigation support. In the meantime, Gary Howard’s other development company, named the Lin Mari Group, continues to trade.
Elsewhere in Liverpool, another failed construction project in Liverpool recently entered administration. The 17-storey Herculaneum Quay tower in Dingle, is one of several projects across the city to have stalled in recent years, with it coming after the firm in charge – Herculaneumco – collapsed. The scheme has since been sold out of administration by Quantuma Partners.
