The Shepherd Building Group sold its built environment businesses in September 2015. However, Wates refused to take on Shepherd’s Colindale project, a mixed residential and retail development in north London.

Now the firm has revealed that retained elements of Shepherd Construction ran up losses of £31.5m, mainly due to extra provisions to complete the retail and high-rise residential project.

The £80m construction scheme, known at TNQ, is still under construction after the main tower had to be reclad.

Scheme consists of five residential blocks of  6-8 storeys and a main 19-storey tower, comprising 462 self-contained flats along with ground floor retail.

Despite this further setback, the Shepherd Building Group delivered a £14m pre-tax profit in 2017, supported by the retained Portakabin business with total revenue down slightly to just under £300m.

During the year the modular and portable building arm increased profit by over a third to £51m.

The underlying growth came from the hire and sales businesses across Europe.

The group employs around 1,900 staff.