Liverpool Football Club has appointed Lancashire firm Rayner Rowen Construction to complete the stadium-upgrade project hit by the collapse of Buckingham Contracting Group.
The Premier League outfit said Preston-based Rayner Rowen, which oversaw the rapid transformation of a club shop into a bar during the 2018 close season, would undertake “final works” on the Anfield Road Stand.
Buckingham workers are understood to have left the £80m project in mid-August after the £665m-turnover contractor ceased trading.
Overall, the scheme is expected to add 7,000 seats with a mixture of general admission and hospitality places, taking the arena’s capacity to 61,000.
The football club said in a statement today: “Work will begin now to fully assess the construction programme and Rayner Rowen will work swiftly with our internal team to produce a revised project-completion programme, which will give us certainty on capacity and phasing.
“We will update on this revised completion programme as quickly as possible. In the meantime, some workers have returned to the site to continue some immediate works.”
The upper tier of the new stand will remain closed for forthcoming domestic games against West Ham United and Leicester City, as well as the Europa League visit of Belgian club Union SG on 5 October.
Additional capacity is expected to be phased in after that.
“We do not expect any impact on the continued operation of the existing Anfield Road Stand, which has remained in use throughout the development so far,” said the club.
“Our thoughts are with all those employees and contractors who face uncertainty at this time. Working with Rayner Rowen Construction, we will seek to engage as many of Buckingham’s existing subcontractors going forward as we are reasonably able to.”
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