A construction firm linked to Newcastle’s Labour leader has been stripped of a building contract by the city council.
Local authority bosses have terminated an agreement with Orca LGS Solutions, which was behind a development in Gosforth that now stands unfinished, due to the company “not meeting required contractual performance”.
The North Shields-based firm has ties to the council’s leader, Nick Kemp, who is known to have lobbied civic centre officials on Orca’s behalf prior to the power struggle that saw him succeed Nick Forbes as the city's Labour supremo earlier this year. The Byker ward councillor’s LinkedIn profile states that he has been Orca’s “Director of New Business and Housing Strategy” since 2018 – though he is not actually employed by the company, rather they are a client of his own PR and lobbying agency NKA Public Affairs.
