HAMPSHIRE County Council has confirmed that it is “business as usual” and that it still plans to complete the final stage of the Whitehill/Bordon relief road despite the collapse of construction giant Carillion, which was responsible for building the second (southern) phase of the £20m scheme.

The collapse of Carillion, which is based in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands and went into liquidation on January 12, sent shockwaves through the building industry as it is the second biggest construction company in the country employing 43,000 people in the UK, Canada, and the Middle East.

The writing was on the wall in July when their shares took a rapid drop for a company, already plagued with substantial financial debt, that holds thousands of contracts in the UK, including the High Speed 2 rail link connecting London with the North as well as work for the NHS, schools and prisons. It also has contracts for building and maintaining motorways, tracks and signals for Network Rail, and work on London’s Crossrail project.

Carillion started work on the construction of phase two of the Whitehill/Bordon relief road in October 2016 and it is, according to the county council, “progressing well to date” and due to be finished this summer.

It is hoped through traffic will use it instead of cutting through the town, and that it will make the A325 more pedestrian friendly.

While it has been confirmed that this is the only live contract issued to Carillion by Hampshire County Council, when news of the collapse was announced, the county council issued an assurance that it already had contractual arrangements in place to deal with such circumstances.

Rob Humby, the county council’s executive member for environment and transport, said: “Hampshire County Council still plans to complete the Whitehill/Bordon relief road, and we are working with the official receiver, Price Waterhouse Cooper, to achieve a beneficial outcome.

“Although Carillion has gone into liquidation, they and their subcontractors are still on site working on the relief road. Price Waterhouse Cooper has publicly stated that it remains business as usual for the time being, and that sub-contractors will be paid for the work they do.

“While we are confident these arrangements will progress the works, provision is being made via Hampshire’s construction framework to complete the scheme, should it be required.”

And he added: “We still intend to complete the surfacing and ancillary works to enable access to the new show homes from the south end of the relief road by spring 2018.

“The north end of the works, to tie in with phase one, we hope will be completed by the summer or early autumn.”