Construction's richest players revealed in ST

The Bamford family, owners of the company that manufactures JCB excavators, is now the tenth most wealthy family in Britain according to The Sunday Times. In its survey of Britain's Richest 500 people, Joe Bamford, the JCB founder, and Sir Anthony, his son and current chairman, have shot to the top with a fortune of œ650 million.

Twelve months ago, the same paper calculated the Bamfords to be worth œ200 million.

Steve Morgan of Redrow is worth œ180m.

Two fortunes, each of œ150 million, are held by Sir Peter Shepherd and family who run the York-based Shepherd Building Group (it was valued at œ330 million last year), and David Wilson of Wilson Bowden.

Brothers Lynn and Con Wilson who run Wilson (Connolly), have an œ80 million fortune, while Sir Christopher Wates has a œ69 million nest egg.

Others worth more than œ50 million are John Brotherton-Ratcliffe (Croudace), John Murphy (J Murphy & Sons), Chris Marshall (Marshall Holdings, Leeds), Duncan and Saraha Davidson (Persimmon), Eric Grove (who sold his house-building business to Alfred McAlpine), and James Miller (Miller Group).