New team for troubled centre

A new chairman and chief executive have been appointed to head up the management team at the troubled Building Centre in London, where staff found themselves locked out by security officers last April after a row over the activities of the Centre's European subsidiary.

Michael Rose, who succeeds Tim Poulson as chairman of the centre, is the former managing director of Butterley Brick and the immediate past president of the Brick Development Association. He is also a former chairman of the Building Materials Export Group.

The new chief executive is Robin Owens, a Cambridge engineering graduate who was commissioned in the Royal Engineers and is also a qualified chartered accountant. He has been a board member of the Midland Bank and Brown Shipley.

Owens said: "Our priority will be to concentrate on our traditional main line activities and perhaps do more with inward missions from overseas to promote UK products."