News

Structural steelwork specialist Taziker Industrial Ltd has posted a pre-tax loss despite an 18 per cent increase in turnover, its latest annual accounts have shown. Revenue for the year ending 31 March 2023 reached £87m compared with £73.5m the year before. Company directors attributed this increase partly to more work…

Creditor claims against Buckingham Group have more than doubled to £256.3m, a new report from the firm’s administrators has revealed. The £665m-turnover company – ranked 30th in the CN100 index in 2022 – collapsed in September 2023. It was initially thought to owe £108m, with 1,258 claims having been lodged…

Vinci Building has signed a £138m contract to build a 12,700 square metre open-die forge in Sheffield for a firm owned by the Ministry of Defence. The firm has been appointed as delivery partner on the scheme, which will create the UK’s largest such facility at Sheffield Forgemasters, a steel…

Balfour Beatty has signed a £119m deal to build a flagship net-zero Scottish prison – with the total scheme cost now four times the original estimated price. The tier one contractor was appointed to a preconstruction contract for the 18,500 square metres HMP Highland in Inverness in 2022. Balfour Beatty…

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) has issued a clarification on site access rules, in a bid to stop main contractors refusing access to designers. New regulations around building safety require contractors and clients to check the competence of their subcontractors by law – but the CIC’s statement suggests some firms…

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has dropped its inquiry into a merger between two aggregates firms after the parties committed to giving up some of their sites. Hanson, which changed its name to Heidelberg Materials in November, agreed to purchase £228m-turnover construction material supplier Mick George Ltd in December…

Homes England chief executive Peter Denton has defended a doomed £60m investment into failed modular builder Ilke Homes, saying it is his agency’s job to take financial risks. Speaking to Construction News after a government-commissioned review encouraged Homes England to act more ambitiously, Denton said he thought his organisation’s risk…

HS2’s land and property director has left the project to take up a newly-created role in charge of defence at Sir Robert McAlpine. Mike Hickson has joined the tier one contractor as managing director of defence, as part of the firm’s strategy to grow its infrastructure business unit. Hickson has…

A defunct contractor has lost a drawn-out court battle after pushing for a multimillion-pound payout when a contract ended prematurely. Shaylor Group went into administration in 2019, during a construction job for Valescure Property. It claimed that its work had been undervalued by Valescure and pushed for more than double…

GMI Construction has bounced back to a profit after applying stronger risk tests around taking on large building projects. The contractor said its stronger focus on the risk of larger projects was a “critical factor” in it scoring a pre-tax profit of £916,000 for the year to 30 September 2023,…