U K
B U S I N E S S
P A R K
home page


Construction 1996
2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996

The information below comes from the UK Activity Report.
Click here for further details

The government-backed UK Sports Council has selected Wembley as the site for the new national stadium, which will receive £200m of lottery funding, while Manchester will get £60m for a 60,000 capacity stadium. 18-Dec-1996 Baggeridge Brick and Hanson Brick are both planning to lay off workers over the Christmas period in order to remove excess stock and maintain prices. 13-Dec-1996 Berkeley Group is planning a £200m residential and commercial development at the south end of the Vauxhall Bridge in London. 11-Dec-1996 Bardon Group has bought a strategic stake in Bruntcliffe, the aggregates company that has been in litigation with dissident shareholders. 06-Dec-1996 Morgan Sindall is acquiring Snape Group, the Manchester-based building contractor, for £600,000. 05-Dec-1996 EBC Group has acquired Spaceage Plastics, the plastic building components company, for £3m. 05-Dec-1996 Wellstream of the US is planning a £55m factory to make offshore pipes at Walker Riverside Park, Newcastle, creating over 200 jobs. 04-Dec-1996 Blue Circle is to increase grey cement prices by £4 a tonne from next March, in order to recover margins that have been lost over the last 5 years. 04-Dec-1996 RMC has increased its stake in Kies-Union Vereinigte Kieswerke, the Austrian aggregates and concrete company, from 49% to about 72%, following a series of share deals. 03-Dec-1996 Keller Group has acquired Makers Holdings, the structural restoration contractor, for £5.8m. 27-Nov-1996 The government now wants at least 60% of the 4.4m new homes required over the next 20 years to be built on brownfield sites - areas of former industrial and urban land. 26-Nov-1996 Redland has won a major contract to supply Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering with most of its requirements for road surfacing materials. 26-Nov-1996 Gateshead council is planning a £100m arts complex by the River Tyne which would require Lottery funding as well as government and private-sector finance, and create 700 jobs. 19-Nov-1996 Hepworth is acquiring a 34% stake in Protherm, the seller of gas boilers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, for an initial £3m, and has an option to increase its stake to 90%. 19-Nov-1996 Amec Developments is to build a £56m business park, called Castle Gate, for Dudley council in a project that will create 2,000 jobs. 15-Nov-1996 Staveley Industries is considering plans to sell its electrical and mechanical contracting business in the medium-term. 08-Nov-1996 English Partnership, the urban regeneration agency, is assuming responsibility for over 5,000 acres of former British Coal sites, and with the backing of almost £400m of government money it is hoped that 55,000 jobs can be created over the next decade. 07-Nov-1996 Redland has won approval from the German authorities to reorganise its European roofing tiles business by merging it with Braas to create a new business called RBB Group. 07-Nov-1996 Frederick Cooper is planning to sell its architectural hardware division in order to raise up to £30m. 06-Nov-1996 Roskel has acquired GTI (UK), the Newcastle-based distributor of suspended ceilings and dry linings, for £600,000. 05-Nov-1996 Cleveland Structural Engineering, the Kvaerner subsidiary, has won a £100m contract to build the longest bridge in China - a 1.4km road bridge over the Yangtze river in Jiangsu province. 04-Nov-1996 Epwin Group has acquired DJ Profiles, the maker of rubber and thermoplastic profiles, from Lilleshall Building Products for up to £3.3m. 29-Oct-1996 Allen, the construction company, is acquiring Vine Plant, the hire company, from Try Group for £2.2m. 29-Oct-1996 Construction costs could increase by up to 28% in the next five years, due to rising wages and material prices, according to EC Harris, the cost consultants. 26-Oct-1996 The government is to auction the Building Research Establishment and expects to complete the sale by February. 25-Oct-1996 Five groups of architects have presented plans to rebuild Manchester city centre by the year 2000, following the bomb damage in June. 23-Oct-1996 Amec is considering the acquisition of a large minority stake in Spie Batignolles to assist in the French contractor's plans to set up a management buy-out from its parent Schneider. 19-Oct-1996 A £110m science and technology centre is being planned in Birmingham with the backing of the Millennium Commission and lottery money, which will include a R&D centre, an education centre and a tourist attraction based on the theme of discovery. 18-Oct-1996 Builders applied to start over 40,700 new homes in the third quarter of 1996, up 8% on last year, according to the National House Building Council. 16-Oct-1996 Hepworth is looking to sell its refractories division, which makes high-temperature linings for the glass, iron, steel and aluminium industries. 15-Oct-1996 The UK Highways M40 consortium, which includes Hyder Welsh, Tarmac, John Laing and two French companies, has won a £100m contract to widen and maintain the M40 motorway between London and Birmingham. 09-Oct-1996 Construction orders were down 3% in the three months to August compared to the previous three months, but unchanged on last year, according to government figures. 09-Oct-1996 New home starts in August were up 500 on last year at 14,900, following the surge in new house sales over the summer, according to the Department of the Environment. 05-Oct-1996 BP Chemicals is linking up with Neath Port Talbot Council and the Welsh Development Agency to launch a £230m redevelopment of Port Talbot, which will include an Energy Park that should create 2,800 jobs. 02-Oct-1996 Redland, the building materials concern, is to cut 700 jobs, mainly in Germany and France, due to difficult trading conditions. 27-Sep-1996 China is planning to use UK standards for the design of roads and bridges, and the Highways Agency hopes the licensing agreement will help UK civil engineers win contracts in China. 24-Sep-1996 The water industry and local authorities are considering plans to build a £6bn canal across the north of England to carry ships between the Atlantic and the North Sea, a scheme which would be the UK's biggest civil engineering project since the Channel Tunnel. 20-Sep-1996 Caradon has increased its stake in Weru, the German window maker, from 50% to 65% at a cost of £24m. 17-Sep-1996 Hanson is opening Europe's longest brick kiln at Perwelz in Belgium, operated by its recently-acquired Desimpel subsidiary. 17-Sep-1996 Kvaerner has unveiled plans to build the £400m 1,265ft Millennium Tower in the City of London, which will be Europe's tallest skyscraper. 10-Sep-1996 RMC has decided to abandon plans to buy the Nova Huta cement plant as part of a possible $100m investment in Poland. 07-Sep-1996 John Mowlem is considering the partial flotation of its access division, which makes scaffolding and ladders, in order to provide more focus and raise capital. 07-Sep-1996 Amec has sold Fisk, its US building services business, for $13m. 06-Sep-1996 CRH is acquiring Tilcon, the US roadstone business, from BTR for $329m, making CRH the biggest construction materials supplier in the northeastern US. 05-Sep-1996 Blue Circle Industries, the cement and building products company, is considering acquisitions in the US, Asia and South America. 04-Sep-1996 Caradon is believed to be preparing to sell 15 engineering and distribution businesses to CINVen for £190m so that it can focus on its building materials business. 28-Aug-1996 CVC Capital Partners is providing the backing for a new company being set up to buy Amec's 50% stake in Building & Property Management Services for about £29m. 28-Aug-1996 Sales of construction equipment are forecast to fall 5.2% in unit terms next year, largely due to the decline in road building, according to Off-Highway Research. 27-Aug-1996 CRH of Dublin is in discussions to buy Tilcon, the American roadstone business, from BTR for about £180m. 22-Aug-1996 Costain, Laing, Tarmac and Alfred McAlpine are trying to bring about the merger of the three main construction industry trade organisations, in order to give them a stronger voice. 20-Aug-1996 Redland, the building materials concern, is looking at ways to move back into South Africa later this year, and also aims to set up joint ventures in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and India. 13-Aug-1996 CRH of Dublin has acquired an aggregates business in Utah for I£10.5m, and is also planning to invest I£10.5m in upgrading manufacturing facilities at its Dutch Brick subsidiary in the Netherlands. 13-Aug-1996 Builders started work on 13,900 homes in June, down 22% on last year, according to the Department of the Environment. 06-Aug-1996 The government has cleared Ibstock's £160m acquisition of Redland's brick business, but has imposed tougher conditions than expected, saying that Ibstock must dispose of five factories producing a combined 168m bricks a year. 30-Jul-1996 Hotel Properties of Singapore is planning a £300m development to build hotels and luxury apartments in Canary Wharf, London. 24-Jul-1996 Wandsworth Borough Council is backing plans to convert Battersea power station into a £200m leisure and entertainment centre, and the consortium involved hopes to start building next spring. 23-Jul-1996 Costain has won shareholder approval for a £74m rescue package, which is likely to see Intria of Malaysia gain a stake of up to 40%. 23-Jul-1996 UK construction output is forecast to remain static this year, followed by a rise of 1.7% next year and 2.8% in 1998, according to Construction Forecasting and Research. 22-Jul-1996 Bovis has withdrawn from the bidding for the £120m University College London Hospital scheme which is being funded by the government's private finance initiative, a move that will be seen as a further blow for the PFI. 13-Jul-1996 Ibstock has said it will sell six brick plants in order to win approval for its proposed £160m acquisition of Redland's UK brick business. 12-Jul-1996 Kvaerner of Norway has said it will drop the Trafalgar House name from its recently acquired engineering, construction and shipping business, with the general construction operation to be called Kvaerner Construction and the John Brown engineering business to be called Kvaerner John Brown. 12-Jul-1996 Construction orders fell in May to their lowest level since September, largely due to a reduction in government spending on roads, according to figures from the Department of the Environment. 10-Jul-1996 Bardon has bought El Gardiner, the US sand and gravel business, for $25m, as well as a quarry from Peabody Quarry of Massachusetts for $9.6m. 06-Jul-1996 Redcar's local council has chosen the Teesland Development Company as preferred developer for a £20m retail development in Redcar town centre. 05-Jul-1996 Costain has announced a rescue refinancing deal in which Intria Berhad of Malaysia could be left with a 40% stake in the construction company, as it is underwriting an open offer to shareholders. 05-Jul-1996 Richards, the building support services company, has had its shares suspended for failing to announce its results on time. 02-Jul-1996 Bovis Homes is acquiring most of the assets of Britannia Group's housebuilding division in a £10m deal which will allow it to expand its south west operation. 02-Jul-1996 RMC is buying 33% of Nowa Huta Cement Works near Cracow, Poland, and hopes to increase its stake further. 28-Jun-1996 Allen, the hire services and construction company, is planning a rights issue to raise £16m for the expansion of its tool hire business and to reduce gearing. 28-Jun-1996 The Department of Trade & Industry, with the support of about 30 companies, is launching an initiative to cut the cost of building process plants by up to 30% by using standard contracts and components and more efficient tender procedures. 27-Jun-1996 Costain, the construction group, is discussing the possible sale of a large stake to a south-east Asian investor. 27-Jun-1996 BPB Industries has bought a further 34.8% of the shares of Gypsum Industries, the South African plasterboard maker, for £28m. 27-Jun-1996 Blue Circle is planning a £180m cement plant in Kent as part of a £330m investment programme aimed at improving productivity. 22-Jun-1996 Amec has been chosen as the preferred supplier to provide new offices for 13,000 Department of Social Security staff in Newcastle upon Tyne. 21-Jun-1996 BPB Industries, the plasterboard maker, is to set up a number of joint ventures with Matte Group of Chile, in order to develop the South American market. 15-Jun-1996 Blue Circle, the cement group, is looking to expand through acquisition in countries such as Argentina, Vietnam and the Philippines. 06-Jun-1996 WS Atkins, the consulting engineer, is planning a flotation which will value it at up to £200m. 05-Jun-1996 Taylor Woodrow is to combine its UK and overseas businesses into one single division. 05-Jun-1996 A consortium comprising Alfred McAlpine, Pillar and Champions Leisure, has been selected to redevelop Alexandra Palace in London, with plans including a multiplex cinema, tennis centre, bowling alley and bingo hall. 01-Jun-1996 Some major UK civil engineering contractors are claiming that they are losing out on contracts from Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil corporation, because the government did not deport a Saudi dissident. 31-May-1996 Bovis is to stop tendering for privately-financed motorways or trunk roads due to the costs involved when bidding and the delays in work being awarded. 24-May-1996 BPB Industries is forming a joint venture with Saint Gobain of France to make glass fibre insulation in the UK. 24-May-1996 Anglian Group is closing its Scope plastic window systems business which came with the BKL Extrusions acquisition last year. 21-May-1996 Pilkington, the glassmaker, is to increase prices by between 8 and 10%, following a 5% decline over the past year. 18-May-1996 Railtrack is expected to award £760m worth of contracts to a group comprising Kier, Bovis, John Laing, YJ Lovell and Taylor Woodrow, to improve rundown railway stations. 17-May-1996 Exports of building materials rose 16% to a record £3.52bn in 1995, according to the Department of the Environment. 11-May-1996 Arlington Securities and Manchester city council are planning a £100m business park at Manchester airport, which will create 4,000 jobs. 09-May-1996 The Highways Agency may cut up to 375 jobs in order to help fund the backlog of roadbuilding schemes that are ready to start. 01-May-1996 Redland has conceded defeat in its attempt to take over Ennemix, the quarrying concern, having gained acceptances for only 2.2% of the shares. 29-Apr-1996 Rugby Group has appointed Amec to start work on the building of its £100m cement plant in Warwickshire, and Amec expects to create 200 new jobs from its involvement. 26-Apr-1996 The number of houses sold in Scotland rose 6.5% in the first quarter compared to the end of 1995, with prices up 0.9%, indicating a sharp revival in the market. 24-Apr-1996 Wainhomes has bought 2,045 housing plots in Devon and Cornwall from English China Clays for £24m. 23-Apr-1996 John Laing has won a £100m contract from the National Superdrome company to build a major sports and conference centre in Bradford, which will include a 65,000 seat stadium. 20-Apr-1996 Wolseley, the building materials distributor, has raised £68m in a share placing in order to fund acquisitions. 19-Apr-1996 Construction orders by volume fell in February for the second month in a row, and the value of orders were at the lowest level since September, according to the Department of the Environment. 17-Apr-1996 There was a 0.5% fall in construction output in the first quarter according to the Building Employers Federation, and margins have fallen for the ninth successive quarter. 16-Apr-1996 Barcom is discussing the acquisition of Meadham Plant Company, the plant hire concern based in Winchester, for up to £2.5m. 12-Apr-1996 Amec has decided against selling its Fairclough Homes housebuilding operation, which was a possibility when it was fighting off a bid from Kvaerner last year. 12-Apr-1996 A £50m multimedia park is being planned in Cardiff Bay by a consortium called Celtic Gateway, creating at least 500 jobs. 10-Apr-1996 The government has decided to transfer the Building Research Establishment to a new non-profit making company, the National Centre for Construction, rather than sell it off. 03-Apr-1996 Government plans for tougher sentencing of criminals are expected to require the building of 20 new prisons. 02-Apr-1996 Redland should soon announce plans to transfer its European roof tile business to Braas of Germany and to sell its UK brick operation. 29-Mar-1996 Construction industry output will stop falling this year and start growing more strongly next year, especially in industrial and commercial, according to a report from Cambridge Econometrics. 28-Mar-1996 Caradon, the building materials concern, is restructuring with the loss of 1,630 jobs in order to save £50m a year. 28-Mar-1996 Pilkington, the glass maker, has announced a £155m restructuring which will result in 1,900 job losses, mainly in North America and Europe. 28-Mar-1996 Barratt Developments, the housebuilder, has launched a £90m rights issue to fund expansion as, like other developers, it is starting to buy residential land again. 28-Mar-1996 RMC, the concrete producer, has increased its stake in Kies-Union Vereinigte Keiswerke, the Austrian aggregates producer, from 24% to 49.9%. 28-Mar-1996 P&O plans to float Bovis Homes next year as part of a move to sell £1bn of assets to build up confidence in the City. 27-Mar-1996 Taylor Woodrow is planning to dispose of a third of its £350m commercial property investment assets in the UK as part of a restructuring process. 27-Mar-1996 Camas, the aggregates company, has warned that 150 road-surfacing jobs are at risk due to government spending cuts. 27-Mar-1996 Bilfinger & Birger of Germany has sold its 9.7% stake in Birse, the construction company, but they will continue to work together on future projects. 26-Mar-1996 John Laing is planning a US stock market flotation for its loss-making Californian housebuilding business, assuming it can improve profitability first. 22-Mar-1996 BTR is to pull out of non-core operations, probably including polymers, construction and North American aggregates. 15-Mar-1996 Construction orders are now showing signs of recovery, with orders in the three months to the end of January up 16% on the previous three months and almost 20% on the previous year, according to the Department of the Environment. 13-Mar-1996 Rugby Group has announced reorganisation plans, including the closure of cement plants in the Midlands and Oxfordshire and the building of a new one at its Rugby headquarters. 12-Mar-1996 Housebuilding output in the private sector fell 8.5% last year according to government figures, but prospects seem to have improved in 1996. 09-Mar-1996 CRH, the building materials concern, plans to make further small acquisitions this year, particularly in eastern Europe. 06-Mar-1996 House prices rose by a seasonally-adjusted 0.9% in February, the seventh monthly rise in a row, according to the Halifax. 05-Mar-1996 Amec, Alfred McAlpine, Brown & Root and Dragados of Spain have formed the Road Management Group to launch a eurobond to raise £165m to fund road upgrading under the government's private finance sheme. 05-Mar-1996 Wilson Bowden has made a £10.4m agreed bid for Trencherwood, the housebuilder. 02-Mar-1996 Blue Circle is offering a 3.75% pay rise to process and craft workers and will be looking at ways to reduce the working week from 39 to 37 hours. 20-Feb-1996 Redland has sold its 35% stake in Terca Brick Industries of Belgium, launched a bid for Ennemix, the UK aggregates company, and is looking for a buyer for its UK brick operations. 17-Feb-1996 Charles Church, the housebuilder with debt problems, is now under the control of the Royal Bank of Scotland which hopes to develop the business and later to float or sell it. 17-Feb-1996 CRH is looking to expand its building materials business in Germany through acquisition, and aims to generate two-thirds of its profits from overseas. 16-Feb-1996 The volume of new construction orders was up 21% in the fourth quarter of 1995 compared to the third quarter, and 20% higher than the fourth quarter of 1994, although the Construction Industry Employers Council has again warned of uncertainty about the future. 14-Feb-1996 New house starts fell 15% in 1995 to 169,700, following a recovery in 1994. 06-Feb-1996 Redland may sell its European roof tile business to Braas, its German subsidiary, in a deal which would see Redland increase its 50.8% stake in Braas. 06-Feb-1996 Redland may sell its bricks division, which has 17% of the UK market, in order to enable it to expand in roof-tiles and aggregates. 05-Feb-1996 The housing and construction bill, intended to improve contracts between construction companies, may be held back for a few months due to a number of amendments from the Labour Party. 03-Feb-1996 Blue Circle Industries is planning to build a new town at Ebbsfleet, Kent, with 3,200 homes, creating up to 20,000 permanent jobs. 31-Jan-1996 Hanson has bid £125m to buy Desimpel Kortemark, the Belgian brickmaker. 30-Jan-1996 Hanson plans to start work on a £500m new town called Hampton, near Peterborough, in the summer, creating 5,200 homes. 29-Jan-1996 Peninsular & Oriental hopes to raise £1bn in a major asset disposal programme, with property likely to be the main assets sold. 29-Jan-1996 Alfred McAlpine is closing its traditional building business, with the loss of 650 jobs, in order to concentrate on civil engineering and housing. 25-Jan-1996 Bellway has bought almost 5% of Wainhomes, the housebuilder, and could be considering a bid for the company. 25-Jan-1996 Berkeley Group aims to raise £73m from a rights issue to enable it to quickly respond to opportunities to gain land for new housebuilding. 24-Jan-1996 New house sales fell 7% in 1995 to 635 per day according to the National House-Building Council. 23-Jan-1996 Demand for construction is unlikely to see much improvement in 1996 according to The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. 23-Jan-1996 Kuwait's National Industries, the building products concern, plans to acquire BI Group, the engineering concern, in its first investment in the West for £96m. 20-Jan-1996 Wainhomes, the housebuilder, is said to be under police investigation concerning the falsification of invoices and the understatement of subcontract costs. 18-Jan-1996 A further 20,000 jobs could be lost in the building industry over the next few months according to the latest survey from the Building Employers Federation. 16-Jan-1996 The Road Link consortium of six companies, including two Italian ones, has won the first "design, build, finance and operate" contract for the A69 road between Newcastle and Carlisle. 13-Jan-1996 Trafalgar House is considering an offer by Persimmon to buy its Ideal Homes housebuilding division, which has upset Beazer Homes who claim Trafalgar have not considered their offer. 12-Jan-1996 George Wimpey and Tarmac are said to be nearly ready to announce the swapping of their housebuilding, quarrying and contracting activities. 11-Jan-1996 Wimpey has denied reports that a management buy-out is being considered instead of the planned asset swap with Tarmac. 08-Jan-1996 The information below comes from the UK Activity Report. Click here for further details Copyright UK Business Park 1995-2007