The boss of a leading housing architect has hit out at clients who cynically put swathes of staff on furlough, forcing projects to stop and loading a financial and even mental health strain on consultants further down the food chain.

He likened the move in some cases to abandoning ship at the first sight of an iceberg instead of remaining at the helm to steer the vessel through dangerous waters.

Brendan Kilpatrick, senior partner at PRP, conceded it was right to halt some work in the face of coronavirus and to furlough employees, but added: “Many of the projects being worked on by these members of staff did not necessarily need to stop overnight.”

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