Balfour Beatty still on top

Balfour Beatty remained in top spot in the building work league table for June, with a £372m haul of contracts, but Wates and Higgins Group were the big movers.

Balfour’s £372m haul comprised 79 project wins, including a £37m waste water project from United Utilities Water, with the total nearly twice the £195m it won last month.

Wates jumped from 12th place last month to 3rd, with £167m worth of contracts across 27 projects. Higgins Group moved from 35th to 4th thanks to one major project win, a £150m mixed-use housing scheme for Regenter.

Laing O’Rourke moved from 3rd into 2nd place, with four wins totalling £269m, including the £200m main construction contract for the Tottenham Court Road Crossrail station.
The news came as the CPA/Barbour ABI construction index fell slightly in June, from 116 last month to 115.

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 “marginal fall” reflected the impact of the poor weather and the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday. “If you exclude these effects then construction was broadly flat,” he said.

The results emerged as the Office for National Statistics’ latest construction output figures showed construction output fell 6.3% in May compared with the previous year. The figures showed the main drag on output was the fall in new public sector work, which fell by about 22%, reflecting the ongoing impact of government spending cuts.

However, total output in May was up 6.2% on April’s low, which had seen output fall 8.5% on 2011 levels.