CONSTRUCTION group Balfour Beatty has announced disappointing results highlighting concerns for the North-East.

Balfour announced a £50m fall in profits from its UK construction business in its first quarter interim report today (Tuesday, May 14.) It cited difficult market conditions and poor performance as well as a lack of major public projects for stagnation in the UK market.

This reinforces the message from North-East contractors that major Government investment is needed now before more jobs are lost.

Douglas Kell, director of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, said: “There is no construction happening at the moment in the North-East.

“There is a lot of Government investment being announced for after 2015, but not released. It has to be released now and made available now rather than announced now and released three or four years down the track.

“If not then the construction sector will reduce further than it already has. Certainly civil engineering has reduced by 25 per cent across the board, which then means companies cease to trade.

“This also puts jobs in the Balfour Beatty supply chain under threat. They have a huge number of employees behind them and that rely on them. We risk driving these jobs further south into Yorkshire when we desperately need them up here.”

Balfour said it did not disclose contracts on which it is bidding, and so could not confirm any new business for the region, and has no projects underway.

It was also unable to confirm how many staff are employed in the North-East or whether that was likely to change in the near future.

In April this year the firm issued a £50m profit warning for its UK construction business which followed a warning in its full-year results that it expected to bring in revenue around £2.55bn, down 20 per cent from 2012.

Its UK construction revenue declined by 11 per cent in the first quarter driven by a 23 per cent fall across the industry.

Despite this poor early performance Balfour expects to make up lost ground in the remaining quarters and finish 2013 back where it started.