Greater Manchester-based Bardsley Construction achieved a 33 per cent increase in turnover in 2017 as it continued to benefit from a strategic decision to diversify its workload including the delivery of prime city centre developments.
In the financial year ended 31 December 2017, the family-owned provider of building services to the public and private sectors with headquarters in Dukinfield, Tameside and a regional office for Yorkshire in Leeds, increased annual turnover by 33 per cent to £68.3m from £51.4m in 2016.
Bardsley generated a pre-tax profit of £1.1m in 2017 (2016: £0.8m), operating profit of £1.17m (2016: £0.86m) and gross profit of £4.2m, up from £3.6m in the previous financial year.
In his strategic report on the financial year, managing director Paul Strutt said Bardsley had “traded well” in 2017 and continued to benefit from a strategy to spread risk by diversifying into the delivery of schemes across public sector, student accommodation, private residential, private rented sector (PRS) and the leisure sector.
Bardsley was on course for a “healthy” 2018 with a pipeline of secured contracts worth more than £60m and a further £12m due to convert to secured status by June.
Mr Strutt said: “The business is now regularly competing for projects in the midrise market and for contracts of £20m or more and this is evidenced with Bardsley currently having a number of major projects in the heart of the city centre in Manchester and Liverpool.
“Private developers react quicker than public sector but strategically as a business we will remain minded to keep the balance of public and private sector in the right proportion.
“Whilst there continues to be delays in contracts starting on site driven largely by the planning process, there is also a general unease and uncertainty of what is around the corner in macro-economic terms.”
Roly Bardsley, chairman of Bardsley Construction, said the firm had benefited from reducing its reliance on the provision of affordable housing, partly because that market “remains slow to react to the constant pleading towards the public sector enablers to build more homes”.
“The delay in public sector work in 2016 continued into 2017 with the only real change being the healthier enquiry levels for elderly care,” he said, adding that Bardsley would continue to specialise in education, elderly care and all aspects of residential development.
Bardsley, which employs 184 staff, is on 13 major delivery frameworks with a total value of billions of pounds with the firm’s diversification strategy meaning it is not reliant on a particular client or sector.
