Morgan Sindall said work on the office, leisure and hotel development was halted on April 7 to review and improve procedures for handling waste and housekeeping on the site.

A spokesman for Morgan Sindall said of the waste situation: “The day-to-day operation of busy city centre construction sites inevitably results in the generation of waste material.

“Our procedures relating to the safe storage and appropriate disposal of this material are reviewed regularly as a matter of course, as part of our ongoing commitment to prioritise safety on all of our sites.

“On Friday 7 April we took the decision to temporarily stand down the Marischal Square site in order to review and improve the arrangements in place for waste management and general site housekeeping.”

The company added: “A member of the Health and Safety Executive coincidentally attended on the following day, as part of an unscheduled site inspection.

“We informed them of our decision to stand the site down the previous day, had identified and were addressing the storage and removal of site debris in question, and restated our intention to ensure our own high standards are upheld by everyone working on the site.”

Work was also halted at the site in February.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirmed concerns had been raised.

A spokesperson for HSE said: “We can confirm that concerns were raised to us.

“Contractors at the site below have agreed to improvements highlighted by the HSE when we visited the site in Aberdeen earlier this month.”

The development is due for completion in the summer.