Barhale on verge of Anglian Water win

Barhale Construction is on the verge of signing an extension to its framework contract with Anglian Water for the latest £2.5bn investment programme.

Work on Anglian's previous five-year investment programme helped Barhale to a £3.3m operating profit on turnover of £157.7m for the year to December 2008.

The latest figures compare to a pre-tax profit of £3.7m in 2007 on a slightly lower turnover of £147m.

Staff numbers at the civil engineering contractor also increased, with Barhale boasting one of the industry's largest directly-employed workforces of 958 people.

Chairman Dennis Curran said: "We are a people business and one of our differentiators with our competitors is that we grow and develop our own direct labour, only using subcontractors for specialist work or dealing with peaks in our workload."

The firm's secured orderbook at the start of the year stood at £83m - representing 53% of budgeted turnover for 2009. Of this, £60m related to water industry frameworks.

Curran said: "Our orderbook remains strong; however our water industry frameworks are up for renewal in 2010.

"We have already had success in securing a continuing relationship with Severn Trent Water and we are in the final stages of signing an extension of our framework contract with Anglian Water into AMP5 as part of the @One Alliance. In addition we have secured a Southern Water framework under a joint venture agreement.

"Our aim is to maintain a sustainable business by securing term contracts within our traditional areas of expertise. We will continue to develop our other business streams in rail, tunnelling, waste and process to achieve a wider portfolio of sectors and clients."

The increase in turnover was achieved despite Barhale electing not to renew its Telent utilities contract at the end of its term in June 2008, which had generated income of £17m in 2007.