Work halts on Maggie's centre '¨as builders cease trading

Work on Maggie's Forth Valley Centre has now halted after the collapse of the Dunne Group
Picture: Michael Gillen — Work on Maggie's Forth Valley Centre has now halted after the collapse of the Dunne Group Picture: Michael Gillen

The facility in the grounds of Forth Valley Royal Hospital at Larbert was due to be completed later this year.

However, Tuesday’s bombshell announcement that the Dunne Group had ceased trading has put a question mark over when the building will now open.

Chief executive Gordon Dunne lives in Falkirk and his company had already built the Maggie’s Centre at Gartnaval Hospital, Glasgow in 2011 when it won the contract for this project. It also was involved in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

Over 500 jobs, 200 in Scotland, have been lost across the group.

A spokeswoman for Maggie’s said: “We are in the process of planning other arrangements for the completion of Maggie’s Forth Valley so as to minimise any delay to the completion of the centre.

Yesterday (Wednesday), a spokesman for the administrators at FRP Advisory said: “The joint administrators are assessing the position with regard to a small number of outstanding contracts across the UK.”

The charity Walk the Walk provided the finance to build the centre which will offer support to the 1900 people in Forth Valley who are diagnosed with cancer every year.

At the centre’s groundbreaking ceremony in March 2015, Mr Dunne said of the facility: “Its contemporary design makes it an interesting project and we look forward to handing over another first class building in the spring of 2016.”