Wates

Wates has appointed former Lendlease veteran Brian Long as its new group health, safety and wellbeing director.  Long will join the family-owned contractor in September and sit on the group’s executive committee, reporting to chief executive Eoghan O’Lionaird.  Long previously worked at Lendlease for more than 17 years, latterly as…

Construction deserves a bigger focus in government and is too often viewed as an “afterthought”, the outgoing boss of Wates Construction Group has said. “For too long, for an industry that employs so many people and that adds so much to the economy, construction is seen as an afterthought by…

CN100 contractors Equans, Morgan Sindall, Seddon and Wates have joined a swathe of smaller firms to land places on a £2bn public sector housing framework. A total of 66 contractors were appointed to the four-year Communities & Housing Investment Consortium (CHIC) framework, which is designed to help local authorities and…

The chief executive of Wates has said the company is now politically “agnostic” and will not make any donations in the run-up to the general election. Wates gave £450,000 to the Conservative Party between 2001 and 2017, according to The Guardian – which also reported in 2018 that then chairman…

Wates has joined the handful of UK contractors that turn over more than £2bn, after reporting a 17.6 per cent increase in revenue to £2.1bn. The Surrey-headquartered company also posted a 43 per cent increase in pre-tax profit, from £33.7m to £44.9m, for the year to 31 December 2023. Its…

Wates has formally appointed a new managing director of its construction business. Steffan Battle has held the role in an interim capacity since October 2023, taking over from Mark Tant, who left the business after nine years in the post. Now Battle has been appointed to the job on a…

Wates has landed the £70m conversion of a Grade II-listed building in central London into a life-sciences hub. The contractor has been appointed by clients Oxford Properties and Pioneer to work on the eight-storey Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square. The 1930s building has a number of unique heritage features behind…

Wates Construction managing director Mark Tant has left the firm after five years at the helm. His role will be taken over on an interim basis by Steffan Battle, former group head of pre-construction, who has been with Wates for almost 30 years. Wates did not comment on the reason…

ISG was the biggest contractor by spend for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the latest financial year, Construction News can reveal. CN obtained data on the MoJ’s spending in 2022/23 under the Freedom of Information Act. The spend includes that by HM Courts & Tribunals Service and HM Prison…

Royal Bam topped the monthly contractors’ league table in July for the first time since 2020, after it was chosen to build converter stations at each end of a £2bn undersea cable between Scotland and England. The firm was awarded £500m for its share of work on Eastern Green Link…