QDS is a specialist contracting business carrying out contaminated land and water remediation projects nationally for a range of clients including commercial developers, house builders, local authorities, industrials, energy providers and utility companies.

The land remediation business operates from Bristol, with the water remediation division in Guildford and Rotherham. QDS employs approximately 95 staff.

Richard Hawes, Deloitte partner and joint administrator, said: ‘QDS has experienced financial challenges arising from a number of unprofitable contracts. This has unfortunately resulted in today’s administration.

‘The company is continuing to trade on a limited basis whilst we assess the options available, including a potential sale of the business.’

QDS is a subsidiary of Hydrock Group which continues to trade as normal with its other subsidiaries and is not affected by the announcement. Hydrock has said it will now focus solely on its core business of multi-disciplinary engineering design and consultancy.

Brian McConnell, Hydrock managing director, said: ‘Remediation contracting work is increasingly high risk and low margin due to the number of organisations expanding their reach into what had traditionally been a very specialist and technical sector.

‘This situation has resulted in work packages proving to be commercially unsustainable in the long term. Coupled with some challenging, legacy projects, this has led to our decision to place QDS Contracting Ltd into administration.’

Report by Pat Sweet