Interserve had its contract on the Glasgow Recycling & Renewable Energy Centre (GRREC) at Polmadie terminated in late 2016 following cost overruns and delays.

Doosan Babcock was brought in to replace Interserve, which decided to quit the energy from waste sector shortly afterwards.

Viridor’s parent company Pennon said last year that completion of construction of the energy centre had required a higher level of remediation and expenditure than predicted, the costs for which were then sought from Interserve.

Pennon said today: “As previously reported, the rectification and completion costs of GRREC exceeded expectations and Viridor are contractually entitled to recover incremental costs from the original principal contractor Interserve Construction Limited.

“We have now issued arbitration proceedings to progress legal recovery of the debt.

“The gross receivable of £72m continues to be recognised and having again considered the assessment of the Interserve credit risk, the cumulative provision of £28.7m remains unchanged from the position at 31 March 2019.”