A sinkhole roughly 8–10 m wide and several metres deep has opened on the AJ Burkitt Reserve sporting oval in Heidelberg, directly adjacent to the North East Link tunnel alignment in Melbourne’s northeast. Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority has confirmed the “surface hole” is in the vicinity of active tunnelling operations, leading to a work pause while engineers and emergency crews carry out geotechnical investigations and monitoring. No injuries or structural damage have been reported, but the area remains fully cordoned off pending cause determination and stability assessment.

Albert Bridge in west London has been closed to motor traffic after a routine inspection found a cracked cast iron component at one of the bridge abutments, Kensington and Chelsea council confirmed. The 1873 Grade II* listed structure, a hybrid cable‑stayed and suspension bridge over the Thames, remains open to pedestrians and cyclists while engineers assess the defect. Structural investigations will focus on load paths through the affected abutment detail and the implications for fatigue and brittle fracture behaviour in the historic cast iron.

A Croydon Crown Court judge has jailed 56-year-old sole trader Israel Jackson for 12 months after he illegally installed a gas boiler for a 90-year-old homeowner in May 2022 while falsely claiming to be Gas Safe registered and issuing a fraudulent gas safety certificate. The installation triggered gas smells, loss of hot water and two separate “immediately dangerous” notices from British Gas and BT Heating and Property before the boiler was finally replaced in June 2023. HSE found Jackson had continued unregistered gas fitting work despite a 2015 conviction, and served U-Works Services Ltd with a prohibition notice for failing to verify his Gas Safe status.

Rainfall 64% above the February average has triggered widespread flooding and landslides across Colombia, killing at least 13 people and affecting more than 10,000, with Antioquia, Cundinamarca and Valle del Cauca among the hardest-hit departments. Rivers including the Magdalena and Cauca have overtopped banks, damaging road embankments, bridge approaches and hillside settlements, and forcing evacuations in multiple municipalities. Geotechnical teams face saturated slopes, debris flows and scour at culvert and retaining-wall foundations, with authorities warning of further failures if intense rainfall persists.

Construction of the $16bn (£12bn) Hudson Tunnel Project beneath the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey has been paused after federal funding disbursements were halted mid-programme. Developer entities backing the new twin-bore rail tunnel, designed to add capacity and resilience alongside the existing 1910 North River Tunnels on the Northeast Corridor, have filed suit against the White House alleging breach of contract. The stoppage raises immediate risk of contractor demobilisation, schedule slippage on critical underground works, and cost escalation for major civils and geotechnical packages already procured.

Fire enforcement notices have been served by the Office for Nuclear Regulation on all five MEH alliance contractors at Hinkley Point C – Altrad Babcock, Altrad Services, Balfour Beatty Kilpatrick, Cavendish Nuclear and NG Bailey – following a December 2025 inspection of the Unit 1 HF electrical building. Inspectors found no suitable fire risk assessment, inadequate means of escape with too few emergency exits for current workforce numbers, and combustible materials stored in a designated emergency stairway. The firms must now embed compliant fire arrangements, while main works contractors Bouygues Travaux Publics and Laing O’Rourke Delivery are separately facing court action over safety breaches.

More than 140,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying towns and rural communities in northwestern Morocco after extreme rainfall and emergency releases from multiple upstream dams caused major flooding along several river valleys. Rapid drawdown and high downstream discharges are stressing ageing embankment protections, inundating agricultural terraces and damaging road and bridge approaches, with several river crossings reportedly overtopped. Geotechnical teams now face urgent inspections of dam abutments, spillway structures and saturated slopes, alongside rapid debris clearance to reopen key access routes for relief and repair works.

A Manchester-based grab hire firm, Salford Grab Hire Limited, has been fined £10,000 plus £3,475.90 costs after a one-tonne excavator bucket, used to prop a raised tipper truck body during repair, became dislodged and crushed a mechanic in October 2023. The worker sustained multiple fractures to his hand, shoulder blade, ribs, shin and thigh, a crushed ankle and foot, and a pulmonary blood clot. HSE found the bucket lacked a quick hitch or retaining pin and that no appropriate tipper body support equipment or safe system of work had been used.

Robertson Partnership Homes has installed a new five-man board – managing director John Baggley, operations director Craig Smith, commercial director Ed Parry, finance director Paul Gray and pre-construction director Andy Park – to steer its Scottish affordable and public sector housing work. The governance change follows defects identified in more than 700 Robertson-built homes across 12 Edinburgh sites, which forced residents out and raised serious safety concerns. The new board is tasked with standardising housing designs for greater consistency, reliability and quality, while supporting local authorities and registered social landlords under acute delivery pressure.

Spey Viaduct’s collapsed spans over the River Spey will be cut and lifted out in sections under a Moray Council plan to create safe access for structural and geotechnical investigation following the 14 December failure. The segmented removal will allow close inspection of critical elements such as bearings, pier foundations and connection details that are currently submerged or unstable in the river channel. Findings are expected to inform both the viaduct’s future and any revisions to inspection and scour management regimes on similar river crossings.

Near 50% more UK construction firms are on the brink, with Begbies Traynor’s Red Flag Alert reporting 9,981 companies in ‘critical’ distress in Q4 2025 (up 46.1% year-on-year) and 108,213 in ‘significant’ distress (up 10.9%). The worst-hit segments include ‘Development of building projects’ (14,968 firms, +12.7%), ‘Construction of Domestic Buildings’ (12,121, +9.9%) and ‘Specialised design services’ (6,666, +15%), alongside sharp rises in electrical and MEP trades. BTG warns stalled projects, high input costs and HMRC tax enforcement are squeezing cash flow, raising counterparty and supply-chain risk.

A self-employed contractor has been jailed for 12 months after 19-year-old labourer Thomas Neate died from head injuries sustained when he fell through an opening while stripping tiles from a domestic garage roof in Staines-upon-Thames on 16 August 2023. HSE investigators found the demolition was carried out directly from the roof with no scaffolding, decking or fall-prevention system, alongside unsafe mini-digger use and unrestricted public access to the site. Asbestos cement sheets were also broken up and removed by hand with no prior survey, exposing three other workers and the household to fibre risk.

Blyth Marble Limited has been fined £50,000 plus a £3,750 victim surcharge after 61-year-old worker Steven White was fatally struck by two granite slabs with a combined weight of more than 900 kg during offloading from a lorry loader at its Larkhall, Lanarkshire premises on 4th September 2024. HSE investigators found vertical safety posts, intended as a physical barrier to prevent slab toppling, had been removed despite custom and practice to leave them in place and no explicit requirement in the safe working manual. The Safe System of Work also failed to distinguish between single and multiple slab lifting and was breached when White worked alone despite a two-person offloading requirement.

Tarmac Building Products has been fined £633,300, plus £5,583 costs and a £2,000 victim surcharge, after an HSE investigation into a 22 July 2022 incident at its Linford, Essex block production line where an employee’s legs were crushed between moving steel frames on a trackway. The interlocked access gate to the fenced frame-cleaning area did not isolate power to preceding track sections, allowing a loaded frame to enter the “safe” zone while manual cleaning was underway. HSE found prior near misses on the same section and a historic risk assessment identifying extra guarding and control measures, which were only implemented after the life-changing injury.

At least 200 artisanal miners are reported dead after multiple shallow coltan mine shafts collapsed at the Rubaya mining complex in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, following heavy rainfall. Local authorities say informal pits on steep, highly weathered slopes failed almost simultaneously, with narrow unsupported stopes and adits giving miners little chance to escape. The incident again exposes the absence of geotechnical design, ground support, drainage control and regulated access in rebel-held artisanal coltan operations across the region.

Centerra Gold has suspended operations at its Langeloth metallurgical facility in Pennsylvania after an uncontrolled mixture of chemicals triggered an uncontained reaction adjacent to the acid plant at about 6:15 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. Two contractors were hospitalised with injuries and two employees taken to hospital as a precaution, with Centerra reporting no significant environmental release and confirming regulators have been notified. The shutdown hits Centerra’s key downstream plant for molybdenum concentrate, slated to process output from the Thompson Creek mine in Idaho when it restarts next year.

A landslip south of Ockley station in Surrey has stripped away the embankment supporting one of the two Horsham–Dorking tracks, leaving the rail and sleepers cantilevered in mid‑air and forcing full closure of the route until at least mid‑February. Network Rail engineers now face emergency stabilisation of the failed cutting or embankment, reconstruction of the formation, and re‑ballasting before traffic can resume. The incident will focus attention on drainage, slope monitoring and resilience of Victorian earthworks under increasingly intense winter rainfall.

A sole-trader roofer, Daniel Jenner trading as Jenner Roofing & Building Services, has received an eight‑month suspended sentence, 280 hours’ unpaid work and £500 costs after a subcontractor fell approximately 4 m through a rooflight on an industrial estate in High Wycombe on 12 August 2023. The worker, operating alone on gutter and drain cleaning, stepped onto a fragile rooflight beside unguarded roof edges and suffered life‑changing injuries including skull, cheekbone, leg and wrist fractures. HSE found no edge protection, no fragile‑roof controls and no fall‑prevention or mitigation systems, leading to a guilty plea under Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

Rail services between Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren have restarted after Network Rail engineers removed debris from the coastal tracks caused by a sea wall collapse during Storm Ingrid. The failure occurred on the exposed Dawlish–Teignmouth frontage, a critical single coastal rail corridor where wave loading and overtopping have previously driven major resilience works. Engineers will now need to reassess wall stability, drainage and scour protection along this reach, with likely implications for design freeboard, armour detail and inspection regimes under more frequent extreme storm events.

A major landslide in Pasir Langu village, West Bandung, West Java has left at least 17 people confirmed dead and dozens missing, triggering large-scale search and recovery operations using excavators, drones and K9 units on steep, rain-saturated slopes. Continuous heavy rainfall and highly weathered volcanic soils are complicating access to buried houses and farm structures, with rescuers reporting repeated minor slope failures and debris up to roof level. Authorities are assessing the stability of adjacent hillsides and considering temporary evacuation zones and traffic restrictions on nearby rural roads.

MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee have urged ministers to refer the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) insulation scandal to the Serious Fraud Office after the National Audit Office found 98% of external and 29% of internal wall insulation installed by mid‑January 2025 was defective. Ofgem has so far identified fraudulent installations worth 1.75% of scheme value, but PAC members believe actual fraud is far higher, citing systemic failure across DESNZ, TrustMark and UKAS, and a fragmented quality-assurance regime. The committee warns that the new Warm Homes Plan, expected to scale up measures such as solar PV and further retrofit, must be backed by far tighter technical oversight and accountability to avoid repeating these failures.

A commuter train derailed in Gelida, near Barcelona, on 20 January after striking a collapsed retaining wall that had fallen onto the track, killing the driver and injuring 37 passengers. The incident, Spain’s second fatal rail accident in a week, occurred on a section of line with trackside earth-retaining structures, raising immediate questions over wall design, drainage, inspection frequency and slope stability under recent weather conditions. For civil and geotechnical engineers, failure mode identification and rapid condition assessment of similar retaining systems on active corridors will be a priority.

Disaster recovery has started on the Bruxner Highway at Mallanganee, where Transport for NSW is repairing and stabilising two failed downslopes damaged by a landslip between Willock Street and Bulmers Road, about 40 kilometres west of Casino. Works include installing soil nails to reinforce the slope mass and control further movement, alongside reconstruction of the affected pavement and drainage. Geotechnical teams will need to manage access and traffic staging on this constrained highway section while drilling and grouting operations are underway.

Midlands groundworks contractor Caldwell Construction, a Stoke-on-Trent firm specialising in new infrastructure, carriageways and footpaths, has entered administration with PKF Littlejohn Advisory appointed on 15 January 2025. The company reported £58m turnover but only £131,000 pre-tax profit for the year to 31 March 2025, operating with an average of 49 staff from bases in Stoke-on-Trent and Warrington. Administrators cite rising input costs, scheme delays and cash flow strain, signalling further risk for civils supply chains relying on small, low-margin groundworks specialists.

A London contractor converting a former public house and adjoining building into residential flats on White Lion Street, N1, has been fined after repeated failures to comply with Health & Safety Executive (HSE) prohibition and improvement notices over a 12‑month period, including unresolved work at height risks and inadequate site management competence. VNP Constructions Limited admitted breaching Regulation 15(2) of the CDM 2015 and two counts under Section 33(1)(g) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, receiving a £7,200 fine plus £900 costs. Director Vasilis Paraskeva was personally fined £10,800 plus £900 costs under Section 37(1) for consent, connivance or neglect.

A construction crane collapsed onto a moving passenger train in northeastern Thailand on Wednesday morning, killing at least 32 people and injuring more than 60. The crane, operating on an adjacent construction site, failed and toppled across active railway tracks, striking multiple carriages at speed and causing extensive structural damage and derailment. Investigators are expected to focus on crane foundation design, ground conditions near the rail corridor, lift planning, exclusion zones and compliance with Thai standards for plant operating beside live transport infrastructure.

Repairing the Llangollen Canal breach near New Mills Lift Bridge, Whitchurch, is expected by the Canal & River Trust to cost several million pounds and occupy most of 2026, severely disrupting navigation on this key feeder from the River Dee. Engineers will need to dewater and stabilise the affected pound, reconstruct the failed canal bank and towpath, and reinstate clay lining and embankment drainage to prevent further leakage. The scale and duration signal significant geotechnical investigation and temporary works to manage soft ground and maintain adjacent infrastructure.

A massive slope failure at the privately operated Binaliw landfill in Cebu City has triggered continuous rescue operations, with dozens of waste-pickers and site workers reported missing beneath tens of metres of municipal solid waste. The collapse occurred during active tipping and compaction, raising immediate questions over waste slope geometry, leachate control and adherence to stability criteria for high fills in a high-rainfall, seismically active region. Local authorities are now reviewing permits and operational controls for large waste embankments across Metro Cebu.

A rainfall-induced landslide at the Barangay Binaliw open dumpsite in Cebu City on 8 January 2026 killed one landfill worker, injured several others and collapsed the on-site Material Recovery Facility, with at least seven people pulled from waste debris and further victims feared trapped. Prolonged intense rainfall caused water infiltration into waste and underlying soils, softening layers, raising pore water pressures and triggering global instability in steep, poorly drained waste slopes. The failure is prompting suspension of operations, drone-based damage mapping and renewed focus on engineered slope geometry, controlled waste placement and surface/subsurface drainage design for tropical landfills.

A construction worker suffered multiple fractures and a dislocated shoulder after a newly built wall collapsed and knocked him through an unprotected stairwell opening, causing a 2.5–3 metre fall onto a concrete floor at Ace Infra’s NW Auctions Milnthorpe site on 25 April 2024. HSE found no edge protection, incomplete boarding over the stair void, no warning signage, no task-specific instructions and no site supervisor present at the time. Ace Infra Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was fined £60,000 plus £4,799.44 costs and a £2,000 victim surcharge.

The derailment of a freight train on a bridge in Audenshaw, Greater Manchester, on 6 September 2024 was caused by failure of screws securing the rails to a timber support system, according to the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. The incident occurred on a bridge structure where the track was fastened to timber rather than conventional concrete or steel bearers, and the screw fixings did not maintain adequate restraint. The findings point to the need for closer inspection regimes and design checks for timber-supported track, particularly at bridge locations with high dynamic loading.

An illegal artisanal mine shaft collapse in Monapo district, Nampula province, killed at least four people and injured 12 on Wednesday evening, after unsupported underground workings failed. Local authorities reported that informal miners were operating without engineered ground support, geotechnical mapping or ventilation, in a narrow, hand-dug shaft typical of unregulated gold and gemstone pits in northern Mozambique. The incident reinforces the high collapse risk in shallow, weathered profiles where excavation proceeds without slope stability assessment, support design or basic monitoring.

Rainfall-triggered rockfall on Highway 18 in San Bernardino County has blocked lanes and damaged barriers along a steep cut slope, following weeks of intense winter storms that saturated highly fractured granitic and metamorphic rock. Caltrans geotechnical crews report multiple failures from tension cracks and oversteepened slopes above the roadway, with debris reaching the carriageway and impacting existing rockfall fences. Engineers are now assessing options including expanded rock bolting, additional draped mesh, improved surface and subsurface drainage, and revised slope scaling protocols ahead of further atmospheric river events.

A catastrophic breach on the Llangollen Canal near New Mills Lift Bridge, Whitchurch has drained a long pound and damaged the embankment, despite recent routine inspections reporting no visible defects. Engineers from the Canal & River Trust are now investigating potential failure mechanisms, including internal erosion, leakage paths and historic construction weaknesses in the canal lining and embankment core. The incident raises immediate questions over current visual inspection regimes for ageing UK canal earthworks and whether more frequent intrusive or remote condition monitoring is needed on high-consequence reaches.

Lineside monitoring systems on parts of Britain’s rail network may fail to detect embankment or cutting slope movements during extreme rainfall, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch has warned following the 3 November passenger train derailment near Shap, Cumbria. The warning concerns remote condition monitoring equipment installed to trigger alerts for ground instability, which did not prevent the derailment. Geotechnical and asset engineers are being urged to review sensor siting, trigger thresholds and system performance in severe weather, particularly on high-risk slopes.

Soil nailing has been selected as the primary long-term stabilisation method for a failing section of Swanage seafront, with works expected to cost at least £4.5M. The scheme will address ongoing ground movement and slope instability affecting coastal infrastructure and promenade assets, where traditional retaining solutions have proved less viable. Designers and contractors will need to manage marine exposure, corrosion protection for nails and facing, and construction sequencing to maintain public access along this constrained shoreline.

Railway managers have been warned by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch that Network Rail’s lineside slope monitoring systems may fail to give usable alerts during rapid failures, after an Avanti West Coast train derailed at around 83 mph near Shap Summit on 3 November 2025 when it struck landslip debris. Remote sensors on steel spikes at 2 m spacing recorded sub‑10 mm movements—below the 10–30 mm “green” alert threshold—before being rapidly buried, losing wireless signal and generating no alarm to control. The landslip followed heavy, sustained rainfall that overwhelmed a cutting‑slope drainage channel, and RAIB has urged duty holders to urgently review and, where needed, mitigate these monitoring limitations.

A man-made embankment on the Llangollen Canal near Whitchurch, Shropshire, failed in the early hours of Monday, creating a large breach that rapidly drained a several‑kilometre pound and triggered a major incident response. The failure occurred on a raised canal section over low-lying farmland, with water overtopping and eroding the embankment before a full breach developed, flooding adjacent fields and damaging access tracks. Canal & River Trust engineers have isolated the affected reach with stop planks and are assessing embankment stability, seepage paths and repair options under constrained access conditions.

BHP faces a demand for at least £189 million ($253 million) in legal costs in the UK after being found liable for the 2015 Mariana tailings dam collapse at the Samarco iron ore mine in Minas Gerais, which killed 19 people and caused Brazil’s worst environmental disaster. The claim covers legal fees plus about £44 million spent on walk-in centres and call centre staff to communicate with roughly 620,000 affected people, and sits alongside a £36 billion ($48 billion) damages claim set for trial in October 2026. BHP is seeking permission to appeal, calling the costs “shocking” and pushing to defer any ruling on costs until after the damages phase.

Scour is now confirmed by Moray Council as the likely principal cause of the Garmouth Viaduct collapse over the River Spey on 14 December, after an abrupt change in the river’s flow path is thought to have undermined the masonry or concrete support piers. Engineers are assessing how localised bed erosion and altered hydraulic conditions around the pier foundations triggered the failure. The case will sharpen scrutiny of scour risk assessments, real-time river monitoring and foundation protection measures on older rail and footbridges in dynamic gravel-bed rivers.

A newly built breeze block retaining wall collapsed into a deep excavation on Old Coast Guard’s Road, Poole, crushing 69-year-old steel-fixer Patrick Grant and prompting a £100,000 fine for principal contractor Matrod Frampton Limited. HSE found the wall had been backfilled before the mortar had set, there was no temporary works design for the wall or other structures, and no temporary works co-ordinator or supervisor had been appointed despite a safety report warning eight days earlier. Rescue was further delayed by reliance on an unstable ladder and the absence of an excavation emergency plan.

Contractors Bouygues Travaux Publics, Laing O’Rourke Delivery and principal contractor NNB Generation Company (HPC) Ltd have all pleaded not guilty at Bristol magistrates’ court to alleged breaches of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 on the Hinkley Point C nuclear project. The ONR prosecutions relate to a fatal incident involving site supervisor Jason Waring on 13 November 2022 and a separate 20 August 2022 accident where slinger Paul Dunne was seriously injured by a falling rebar mesh wall in a pre-fabrication yard. All matters are adjourned to Bristol Crown Court on 30 January for pre-trial review.

The 19th-century Garmouth Viaduct over the River Spey in Moray, Scotland has collapsed, exposing a decade-long failure to act on a 2014 recommendation for a full structural survey. The former rail viaduct, now used as a pedestrian and cycle crossing, had already been subject to partial closures after previous flood damage and scour concerns. The incident raises immediate questions over inspection regimes, asset management of legacy wrought-iron and masonry structures, and how local authorities prioritise intrusive surveys for ageing river crossings.

A levee breach on the Desimone levee along Washington’s Green River near Tukwila occurred under atmospheric river rainfall, with river levels peaking near 22 feet after a rapid 15‑foot rise in one week, exceeding six decades of recorded stages. The failure, a vehicle‑sized opening caused by internal erosion under prolonged high hydraulic loading, triggered flash flood warnings and evacuations for more than 45,000 residents in low‑lying areas. Emergency works using large sandbags and temporary fill stabilised the embankment, but saturated foundation soils and elevated groundwater leave wider regional levee and slope stability at risk from further storms.

Contractors will return to the M62 Ouse Bridge over the River Ouse this weekend (13–14 December) to replace a damaged expansion joint installed only a couple of years ago, following an unexpected bolt failure earlier this year. National Highways plans to complete the joint replacement under a short-duration closure to minimise disruption on this key trans-Pennine route between junctions 36 and 37. The repeat intervention on a relatively new joint raises questions over detailing, fatigue performance and inspection regimes for heavily trafficked motorway bridges.

Severe bearing deterioration on a major strategic road bridge has been found after going unnoticed for more than 15 years, raising concerns that local authorities lack sufficient in‑house bridge engineering expertise. Inspectors identified advanced damage to key support bearings, with the defect considered potentially critical to the structure’s load‑carrying capacity and long‑term serviceability. The case is prompting calls for more specialist bridge inspectors, better asset management systems, and clearer responsibilities for monitoring ageing structures on heavily trafficked routes.

A labourer working for Premier Property & Construction Limited suffered life-changing injuries after being pulled over the edge of scaffolding during an unplanned lifting operation at a Cathcart Hill refurbishment site in London on 15 April 2024, when an untested lifting accessory snagged and then released. Health & Safety Executive investigators found routine lifting was neither planned nor monitored, and untested, unsuitable lifting gear was allowed on the scaffold. Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court fined principal contractor Axis Europe Limited £640,000 and Premier Property & Construction £160,000, plus identical costs and victim surcharges.

A newly built embankment along National Highway 66 at Mylakkadu in Kollam suddenly collapsed, trapping several vehicles including a school bus and opening deep ground fissures across the service road and adjacent plots. The failure occurred on a recently widened section of NH66, where fill had been placed to raise the carriageway above surrounding low-lying land, and eyewitnesses reported no prior signs of distress. State authorities have ordered a technical investigation into embankment design, fill quality, drainage provision and construction supervision, with traffic now diverted and the affected stretch closed.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Yakutat, Alaska, has generated over 160 aftershocks in 24 hours, with shaking felt across southeastern Alaska and into Yukon and British Columbia, raising concern for ageing port, pipeline and road embankment infrastructure on soft coastal sediments. USGS reports shallow crustal rupture along the Fairweather–Queen Charlotte transform system, with peak ground accelerations locally exceeding typical design levels for older structures. Geotechnical teams are prioritising rapid reconnaissance of slope stability, liquefaction-prone deltaic deposits and critical lifelines, including fuel terminals and regional airstrips.

Construction plant dealer Warwick Ward (Machinery) Ltd has entered administration after 55 years of trading, with joint administrators from Interpath appointed on 3 December 2025 and most of its 89 staff already made redundant. The Barnsley-based firm, which also operated depots in Bromsgrove and Harlow and supplied Case, Terex, Ausa, Faresin and Sunward equipment, saw performance swing from a £679,000 pre-tax profit on £51.2m sales to a £1.3m loss on £45.3m turnover in its first year under an employee ownership trust. Administrators cite reduced capital spending in construction, groundworks and waste recycling, and are now seeking buyers for the company’s assets.