The collapse of contractor Helix Construct has halted six sites within the Helix Construct Greenwich Builds programme, forcing the Royal Borough of Greenwich to secure all affected locations and begin individual reviews to determine how construction can resume.
The six schemes form part of Greenwich’s 1,750-home Greenwich Builds programme. A council spokesperson confirmed that Helix, which had been working on six of its smaller Greenwich Builds sites across the borough, had ceased to trade. ‘Greenwich Builds uses a variety of contractors to diversify and manage risk across its programme, and as a council we are committed to completing these homes,’ the spokesperson said. ‘We have secured all sites and are reviewing each scheme individually, and will be working alongside the administrator to find solutions as quickly as possible.’
Lemonwell Drive among the Helix Construct Greenwich Builds sites affected
One confirmed affected development is at Lemonwell Drive, off Bexley Road in Eltham, where Helix was building a block of nine flats. The council has not disclosed the locations of the remaining five schemes, though it has confirmed that neighbours at each site have been informed of the situation and that further updates will follow as plans for individual schemes become clearer.
Despite the disruption, the council maintains that the wider programme remains on track. Of the 1,750 homes targeted under Greenwich Builds, 1,041 new council homes have now been delivered to people on the local housing register, with hundreds more under construction. The spokesperson stressed that the programme’s use of multiple contractors was a deliberate risk-management strategy, and that Helix’s collapse, though disruptive, would not derail the overall delivery trajectory.
Programme funding and wider delivery model
The Greenwich Builds programme is funded in part by the Mayor of London alongside council resources, according to the Royal Borough of Greenwich. That mixed-funding structure is typical of larger affordable housing programmes in London, where grant support from City Hall sits alongside local authority capital to underwrite delivery costs.
Beyond the directly contracted sites, the council is also working with housing associations, developers and Meridian Home Start, a community benefit society set up by the council itself, to create hundreds of additional homes for local people. That broader delivery model means the programme is not solely dependent on any single construction contractor, which lends some resilience to a collapse of this kind, even if individual sites now face delays of uncertain length.
The embodied and operational carbon implications of construction delays are rarely discussed in these circumstances, but re-procurement of a contractor mid-scheme carries its own risks: continuity of materials specification, compliance with any pre-agreed environmental standards, and the potential for design changes that alter the carbon baseline of the original specification. Greenwich has not yet disclosed whether any of the six schemes carried specific sustainability targets or Passivhaus-style fabric standards.
Helix’s financial position before collapse
Helix had filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators before the formal collapse, a move reported by Construction News. The Newbury-based contractor worked across residential and education schemes in London and the surrounding counties. Its latest accounts showed turnover of £39.5 million for the 18 months to 30 June 2025, alongside a pre-tax loss of just over £180,000. The company employed an average of 44 people during that period.
The relatively thin margin implied by those figures is a common characteristic of smaller residential contractors operating in the London market, where labour, material costs and programme risk frequently compress returns to near-zero. Whether the administrator can identify a buyer or a route to novating the six outstanding contracts to a replacement contractor will determine how quickly residents on the housing register can expect delivery of the affected homes.
The council has said it will provide further updates as plans for each individual scheme become clearer, with the review of all six sites currently under way alongside the administration process.
