Costs soar at Manchester £357m town hall job

Lendlease’s restoration of Manchester’s grade one-listed town hall is running two years late and has broken the contingency budget.
Rampant construction inflation, knock-on costs of delays from Covid and more stringent fire testing of materials are being blamed for pushing the project seriously over budget.
With restoration work around 60% complete, the project is now running £63m over budget with contingency funds used up.Lendlease has asked for £29m immediate interim ca