One lesson the Connaught story tells us is that clients are too ready to accept prices that aren鈥檛 sustainable

During the financial crisis and fallout of the Ponzi schemes run by Madoff and others like him, the phrase 鈥渋f it looks too good to be true then it must be鈥� was often quoted

Following the demise of Connaught, many clients will be thinking the same. I will be unpopular for stating this, but too many clients have rushed to accept prices that were so far below the market norm that they were unsustainable - however, they chose to gamble on them anyway.

Clients insist on a very high specification for the works they tender, but if they are professional and in touch with their market, then surely the simplest of evaluations would tell them that the price they accepted was never going to meet the aspiration of the specification they advertised. And this criticism can also be levelled at the many consultants who advise them.

I do not absolve myself or other contractors from our part in this macabre play. But the fact remains that it takes a very brave contractor to buck the trend or sit out of the market until a correction takes place.

Indeed, I can probably trace back the under-bidding at least two years and none of us can afford to be off the scene for that long.

The simple matter is that when we have to underbid we risk letting clients down, and the cost of rectifying such risk-taking is far greater in financial and human terms, as we have seen with the fall of Connaught.

I have secured work on the basis of the price properly matching the specification offered, but such clients are few and far between and sadly, despite Connaught鈥檚 demise, too many clients will not learn their lesson.

It鈥檚 time for a session of mea culpa across the boardrooms of contractors and clients alike.

Chris Cheshire is chief executive of social housing firm Kinetics

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