Housing and schools work boosts contractor but sector as a whole affected by bad weather in March

James Wates

Wates shot to the top of the contractor league table last month, with a contract haul of 拢272m.

The firm鈥檚 15 contracts included a 拢115m housing maintenance contract for Wolverhampton Homes, as well as 拢35m batch of schools through the Priority Schools 黑洞社区 Programme in Coventry.

Vinci, Bam, Laing O鈥橰ourke and Morgan Sindall made up the top five in both contractors鈥 league tables (including and excluding civils), with Interserve and Willmott Dixon the biggest movers.

Interserve鈥檚 拢83m haul, which included 拢70m job to build a new engine manufacturing facility for Jaguar Land Rover in the Midlands, saw it soar from 45th place last month to 6th in the league table including civils.

Willmott Dixon rose from 22nd last month to 7th, on the back of a 拢83m haul that included a 拢40m mixed-use development for Rise Road Developments in Ascot.

Overall the CPA/Barbour ABI construction index dropped to 112 last month, down from 113 in February.

The index, compiled by the Construction Products Association (CPA) using data from construction information firm Barbour ABI, measures contract awards and uses a January 2010 base of 100.

Noble Francis, CPA economics director, said the fall indicated that contract awards dropped during bad weather in March. 鈥淭here is no getting over the fact that the first quarter as a whole was bad. In Q1 the index was 111, which is 10% lower than a year earlier,鈥 he said.

鈥淭his will mean that we see some pick up in the second quarter but prospects for the year are not great.鈥

 

 

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