More jobs go as work on houses winds down

Jobs are being axed by the company behind a £425 million revamp of council homes in the Black Country - with 30 already having left their posts.

West Bromwich-based Connaught will slash jobs when its contract with Sandwell Homes to transform 29,000 council houses in the borough as part of the Decent Homes programme comes to an end in December.

Around 30 people working on the project have already left the company.

No redundancies have yet been made and the company is now in a statutory consultation period and said it is looking at the opportunities for retaining and redeploying people.

Company spokesman Paul Haines, said: "Because our contract with Sandwell Homes will be coming to an end in December, we have been forced to place our employees on this contract at risk of redundancy.

"We have agreed to requests from 30 employees to leave immediately. For the remainder of our employees, we are exploring opportunities to either redeploy or reassign as many as possible.

"Wherever possible we will also try to accommodate any further requests from staff to leave.

"However this will be on a phased basis to ensure that we can continue to fulfil our obligations to Sandwell Homes for the remainder of our contract."