The cancellation of government building programmes had a direct impact on the collapse of top-10 UK architect Archial, the rescued firm鈥檚 chief executive said this week.

Chris Littlemore said the firm had a number of schools, academies and custodial projects cut or frozen in the past six months which 鈥渃ertainly had an impact鈥� on the fate
of the company.

Littlemore was speaking as the 300-strong architect was rescued out of administration by Canadian practice Ingenium. Under the deal, completed on Tuesday for undisclosed terms, the practice鈥檚 staff and major clients will be retained, and the firm re-named Ingenium Archial.

Littlemore said: 鈥淚n the board meeting on 26 August we felt clearly the pipeline we鈥檇 previously reported on wasn鈥檛 coming through with the speed necessary to maintain the sort of revenue for this year that the market expected. We were faced with deferment of a number of those [projects], and cancellation as well.鈥�

Archial finally went into administration last week after HM Revenue & Customs said it would not allow it to delay paying an overdue tax bill. Full interview with Littlemore and Archial鈥檚 new Canadian owners in 好色先生TV next week.