Member Article

Booming Yorkshire turns business on its head

The surge in demand for new homes in Yorkshire has turned a North East utility infrastructure business on its head.

Since the property crash in 2008 Service Connections Limited (SCL) has spent as much time working on behalf of insolvency practitioners - resolving issues involving building firms in administration or receivership - as the new connection projects it was established to deliver in 2006.

However, as house building returns to pre-crash levels, Keith Macaulay’s team has seen a massive rise in the construction and project management of electricity, gas, water and telecommunications infrastructure on new developments.

“In the first four months of 2014 we have won work on 500 plots – double our target and the vast majority of this is in Yorkshire, with projects in Castleford, near Leeds and Bradford,” says Macaulay: “It is certainly the biggest growth area for us although we’ve also secured work in the North west and in London.

“In addition we are in the process of bidding on 65 further schemes in and around Dewsbury, Hull, Sheffield and York totalling a further 2,500 plots. This is an incredible turn around in the market which, 18 months ago, was pretty much dead.”

The number of first-time buyers in Yorkshire is the highest in over six years, according to new figures from Your Move and Reeds Rains - part of LSL Property Services. In the first three months of this year there were 6,400 first-time buyer sales - the highest quarterly number since the final three months of 2007.

Nationally, the number of first-time buyers hit a six-and-a-half year high in March as the Government’s Help to Buy scheme enabled more people to secure a mortgage. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) predicts that 150,000 new homes will be built across the UK during 2014 – a 20 per cent rise on 2013 levels.

On the back of such predictions and with Help to Buy being extended until at least 2020, SCL, which is based in Corbridge, Northumberland, has taken on another engineer and invested in new information technology and plant to meet demand.

Anticipating pre-tax profits for the year to far exceed the £95,600 figure for 2012/13, Macaulay adds: “The problem developers are having is getting the utility companies to respond quickly enough to keep pace with building and that is something which is only going to become more challenging.

“It can be a complex process but with over 20 years experience in the sector, we can make sure things get done.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Dobbie .