City Building looks to repair Covid damage with £20m of new contract wins

COUNCIL-BACKED construction services group City Building has highlighted the strength of its forward order book following a year in which operations were severely hampered by lockdown restrictions.

Both of the group’s two component businesses recorded a reduction in turnover for the year to March 31, and there was no distribution of cash to members. In the previous year,

City Building returned a total of £7.7 million to Glasgow City Council and social housing provider Wheatley Group.

City Building (Contracts) is whollyowned by the council, while City Building (Glasgow) was set up in 2017 as a 30-year joint venture owned equally by the council and Wheatley Group. Wheatley owns or manages more than 93,000 homes across 19 local authorities in Scotland.

City Building (Glasgow) provides repairs, maintenance and investment work to Wheatly, and saw its turnover fall to £105.7m against £142.6m previously. The contracts division – which undertakes work for the council and delivers construction, repair and maintenance contracts – posted revenues of £45.8m, down from £65.2m the year before.

The group went into lockdown on March 23 of last year, with all but emergency repair services coming to a halt. However, operations have resumed in line with easing restrictions, with £20m of new contracts recently secured.

“Despite the difficulties over the last financial year, we have a very strong order book which will help us build back the business and potentially exceed our operational targets for the next financial year,” executive director Alan Burns said.

“During the pandemic we took the opportunity to undergo a digital transformation that enabled new flexible working practices and will continue to deliver improvement across our businesses. We also progressed our plans to construct a new college for our apprenticeship programme, which is the biggest of its kind in Scotland, and we’re seeking to upskill our wider workforce as we embrace renewable technologies in collaboration with our stakeholders and supply chain.”

City Building (Contracts) claimed £3.1m in furlough payments during the year, plus a further £4.4m payment from the council to cover “temporary” price increases generated by the need for extra security and equipment, and to cover fixed overheads. City Building (Glasgow) claimed £10.2m from the job retention scheme and received £2.9m to cover temporary price increases.