Liverpool Football Club has chosen Rayner Rowen Construction, a Lancashire company, to finish the stadium-expansion project that was affected by the failure of Buckingham Contracting Group.
The club said that Rayner Rowen, which had previously converted a club shop into a bar in a short time in 2018, would carry out the “final works” on the Anfield Road Stand. Buckingham, a contractor with a turnover of £665m, stopped trading in mid-August and its workers left the £80m project soon after.
The project aims to increase the stadium’s capacity to 61,000 by adding 7,000 seats, including general admission and hospitality seats.
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.”