Rayner Rowen entrusted with Anfield Stand work

Article posted by Coliseum, September 13^th, 2023

Image: Liverpool FC

The Premier League team Liverpool Football Club (UK) has appointed the Lancashire firm Rayner Rowen Construction to complete the stadium-upgrade project hit by the collapse of the Buckingham Contracting Group.

‘Construction News’ stated that the Premier League outfit said the Preston-based Rayner Rowen, which oversaw the rapid transformation of a club shop into a bar during the 2018 close season, would undertake “final works” on the Anfield Road Stand.

The Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England (UK). The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has played its home games at Anfield since its formation.

The Anfield is a football stadium in Anfield, Liverpool, England (UK), which has a seating capacity of 54,074, and is currently under expansion to seat 61,276, which make it the fifth largest football stadium in England. It has been the home of Liverpool since their formation in 1892.

Preston (UK)-based Rayner Rowen Construction is a multidisciplinary construction company dedicated to delivering innovative and sustainable solutions which exceed its clients’ expectations. From the company’s extensive and diverse experience in a variety of sectors, they are well-placed to deal with the challenging requirements of every construction project. They are constantly striving to achieve all their clients’ needs and aspirations and pride themselves on their proven ability to constantly deliver high quality projects within the timescales required.

Stowe (UK)-based the Buckingham Group Contracting Limited was a construction company, originally founded in 1955. It was located near Stowe, between Buckingham and Silverstone in North Buckinghamshire and operated throughout England and Wales. It went into administration in 2023 with the loss of over 400 jobs.

‘Construction News’ further stated that the Buckingham workers are understood to have left the £80m project in mid-August after the £665m-turnover contractor ceased trading.

Overall, the scheme is expected to add 7,000 seats with a mixture of general admission and hospitality places, taking the arena’s capacity to 61,000.

The football club said in a statement sent out on September 8^th, “Work will begin now to fully assess the construction program and Rayner Rowen will work swiftly with our internal team to produce a revised project-completion program, which will give us certainty on capacity and phasing. We will update on this revised completion program 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 the forthcoming domestic games against the Premier League team West Ham United F.C. and the EFL Championship team Leicester City F.C., as well as the Europa League (second-tier competition of European club football) visit of the Belgian club Union SG (Belgium) on October 5^th.

The additional capacity is expected to be phased in after that.

The club further stated in its statement, “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. 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.”

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