The collapse of the £30m turnover group has seen Kier Living swoop in to take on several of the firm’s house building contracts.

Around 128 Southdale staff, working out of the Halifax and Warrington offices, will now be offered work as part of the deal.

A remaining 87 were made redundant today by administrators from AlixPartners Services.

Southdale specialised in affordable new homes and technically demanding public buildings including care accommodation, medical facilities and community centres.

The worked primarily with local authorities across the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humber regions.

Kier Living will work closely with the Southdale administrator and employees to ensure a smooth transition into the business with immediate effect, maintaining continuity of delivery wherever possible for clients and supply chain partners.

John Anderson, Kier Living’s executive director, said: “Today represents an important milestone for Kier Living as we expand our presence in the north of England in order to deliver our growth plans, as set out in Kier’s strategy Vision 2020.

“Nationally Kier Living plans to increase output from around 1,500 units per annum currently, to around 4,000 units by 2020.

“Not only will we be able to use the combined capability and expertise of the two teams to deliver existing developments, we will also be able to expand our offering to a wider range of clients, and deliver projects of an increased scale. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Southdale employees to Kier and look forward to continuing our journey of growth with them.”