Turnover up at East Anglian builder

A specialist building firm in East Anglia is on course to defy the gloom over construction industry by recording a modest increase in turnover and profits this year.

King's Lynn-based Chalcroft expects to see turnover rise from £32m in the financial year to June 2009 to £34m this summer thanks to clients in the food industry deciding to refurbish or extend their premises.

Chalcroft numbers Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Dairy Crest, and Nestle among its clients and its recent contracts have included the development of a high-care temperature-controlled production facility for in Lincolnshire, and a chill store extension for a food wholesaler in Hertfordshire.

But the firm has also been working on "digital switchover" projects around the country - upgrading roads, buildings and electrical supply systems linked to TV transmitter masts.

The firm employs about 140 people nationwide and about 40 in Lynn.

Managing director Mark Reeve said the firm had managed to maintain its profit margins and had not shed jobs from its core workforce in the last 12 months.

Mr Reeve added: "These are certainly challenging times for business in general and it is definitely a competitive market, but we are seeing that the food sector is still presenting us with opportunities to add real value to our clients.

"Our portfolio of work with big brand names, and with manufacturers and producers, together with an established reputation, means that we have been able to win new clients and work with existing ones time and time again.

"We have seen a rise in the number of businesses who are choosing to refurbish or extend existing premises, particularly with clients who are consolidating businesses by perhaps relocating a number of fragmented operations onto a single site."