Cardiff Council is making £7m of payments to subcontractors and suppliers for completed work on the £108m Fairwater Community Campus job which came to a halt when main contractor ISG collapsed.

The council has also appointed Borley Engineering Services Ltd (BESL) as the emergency interim principal contractor to ensure that work on site can restart as quickly as possible while a tender exercise gets underway to select a replacement main contractor to complete the job.

The council said: “As part of the arrangements with ISG’s administrator, we will appoint BESL on an emergency basis and will save jobs and protect the works completed so far by making payments in excess of £7m to the existing subcontractors and suppliers for works already completed.

“It is believed that the Fairwater Community Campus is one of the largest projects ISG had on site across the UK and this arrangement has not been replicated elsewhere.

“The local authority has actively engaged with the subcontractors throughout the process, of which many are based within 20 miles of the Fairwater Community Campus site.”

The project is Cardiff’s largest education development and includes the construction of three new build schools for Cantonian High School, Riverbank School and Woodlands High School, all situated on the single site in Fairwater.

A spokesperson for Cardiff Council said, “We are fully committed to ensuring the progress of the Fairwater Community Campus project and have put in place an arrangement that saves the supply chain.

“By selecting BESL as the interim emergency principal contractor, we will get workers back on site as soon as possible, ensure workers are paid for work done, minimise delays, keep costs down, protect jobs, and safeguard the supply chain while protecting the public investment that has already taken place in what is one of the UK’s largest education projects.

“This project is vital for the current and future generations of pupils in the three schools, and to the wider community, that will be utilising the new facilities on the campus, and we are dedicated to seeing it through to completion.”