Stephenson Bell to be renamed

Roger Stephenson, director of Manchester-based architect firm Stephenson Bell, has confirmed the departure of director Jeff Bell.

Stephenson said the practice is soon to be re-named Roger Stephenson Architects and in the past two years the firm has written off almost £500,000 of bad debt caused by some of its large developer clients going into administration or liquidation.

When contacted by Place in January following rumours about the company, Stephenson denied Jeff Bell was leaving and said it was business as usual.

Today he said the company has entered into a company voluntary arrangement in order to reschedule its debts which are owed mainly to HM Revenue & Customs.

Stephenson said: "The practice is in a very healthy position as far as current workload and expenditure is concerned, but has been forced to reschedule its tax debt in order keep our highly skilled and loyal staff and service the needs of our clients. We are going through a very exciting time with our work which includes the new school building for Chethams, several hotel projects in Manchester, continuing work at Trafford College as well as a number of significant office projects in Central Manchester.

"Jeff has left to do his own thing and he's forming his own architecture practice in Manchester, no other staff will be leaving. We're still working on the same projects and the beauty of the CVA is that we can carry on as the same."

Stephenson said the firm has 28 staff at its practice in Adair Street.