Nationwide's Swindon housing development almost collapsed

Coronavirus arrived in the UK a month after the Swindon-based building society secured its lead contractor for the Oakfield Project – then that contractor’s parent company, Midas Group, collapsed into administration.

The construction firm turned over more than £291 million during the 2020/2021 financial year but also recorded a pre-tax loss of £2 million, as it felt the impacts of Brexit, the pandemic, labour shortages, and inflation of material prices all at once.

In February 2022, news of these significant financial woes became public, which made people working on the Marlowe Avenue site fear for the future and worry about unpaid wages, and the site soon became a ghost town.

In July, Nationwide appointed Lovell Partnerships Ltd as the new lead contractor and re-started work on the 239-home estate.

Construction on much of the Oakfield Project is still well underway (Image: Newsquest)

Now that the first homes are going on sale, the scheme’s leaders have spoken exclusively to the Adver about how they responded to these huge hurdles.

Rachel Smith is the senior manager for Swindon investment and works with marketing consultant Jack Wattling.

She said: “We signed the contract with Mi-space in February 2020, so once the pandemic began, we wondered if we would have to stop everything as soon as we’d started.

“Luckily, the construction industry could continue and, as all the work was outside, things carried on.

“The pandemic did affect the supply chain. Materials became more expensive and harder to get, but we kept the community informed of what was happening even after work stopped.”

When all is said and done, the Oakfield Project will be one of the largest off-gas developments in the UK Project manager Nick Spittal added: “After Mi-space went into administration, we called all the sub-contractors to tell them ‘this has happened but we want to keep you involved’.

“Lovell’s picked things up with the existing subcontractors which helped get things back up and running quickly. We did not want the site to sit empty for years and we were pleased with the six month turnaround, it’s not normally done that quickly.”

This is the first time Mr Spittal has overseen a project like this, so he worked with industry experts like Igloo Regeneration, Metworks, and PRP to provide firm foundations for the development of the housing scheme.