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Timescales for the restoration of the Harris Museum and Art Gallery could slip again.
Blog Preston can reveal the lead firm of four firms due to ‘fit-out’ the museum has gone into administration with Preston City Council having handed over more than £300,000 to the firm in May and June this year.
Beck Interiors, based in Chessington, Surrey, were due to begin work in October this year.
Read more: Exploring how the Harris now looks two years after refurb began
However the firm called in Begbies Traynors administrators in mid-July, leaving a question mark over what happens with the work due to take place at the Harris.
Cabinet member for arts and culture, councillor Anna Hindle, told Blog Preston: “We are extremely disappointed about the news that Beck Interiors Ltd. have gone into administration. We are taking legal advice and need to fully understand the implications and the impact this will have on the Harris Your Place project.
“We are working hard behind the scenes to secure a replacement specialist fit out contractor. We will provide an update on the situation once we have appointed a replacement contractor.”
Beck were due to be ‘leading on the implementation of the innovative design, the manufacture, installation and commissioning of bespoke interior finishes, audio visual, interactives, exhibition power, lighting and the graphics within the Harris’ – so going bust leaves a major hole in the work due to take place from October onwards.
Latest accounts for Beck Interiors, filed on Companies House for the 2022 trading year, show it had a turnover of £139.3m and an operating profit of £7.1m and had £19.7m of cash in the bank. It had grown rapidly in the previous 12-months with a surge in revenues of £53.2m up year-on-year.
Analysis by Blog Preston of Preston City Council payments showed £304,618.75 had been paid in the last two months of publicly available financial data.
Construction work on the building, undertaken by Preston firm Conlon Construction, is due to be completed during September with work on installing the updated galleries and interior fittings due to take place.
Three other contractors – Orbis, Four Agency Worldwide and Click Netherfield – were also appointed in February this year for the Harris work.
The grade-I listed museum, art gallery and library is due to open in Spring 2025 – which has already slipped from an initial opening date of ‘late 2024’.
The Harris project has also been hit by rapidly spiralling construction costs. The public cost of restoring the building, which has been shut more than two years, is given as £16.2m but documents shown to Blog Preston indicate this is likely to raise by a further major six-figure sum.
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