Barratt clinches Scottish contract.

Byline: By Howard Walker 

Barratt Developments has clinched a pounds 185m contract to build almost 1,400 homes on former school sites in Scotland.

The Newcastle company will carry out work at nine former school sites in South Lanarkshire, West Scotland, in a four-year project billed as one of the largest single regeneration programmes it has undertaken in recent years.

News of the deal with South Lanarkshire Council comes a fortnight after Barratt signed a pounds 4.37m contract securing direct funding from the Housing Corporation for a 153-home affordable housing development in the West Midlands.

Barratt Group chief executive David Pretty, who steps down from his post in October, said: "Our West Scotland division is already one of the largest housing providers in Scotland and this important partnership project with South Lanarkshire Council will form a major part of its output going forward for the next five years. In common with major population centres across the UK, West Scotland is undergoing a period of historic renewal and transformation and we're very proud to be playing a key role in that."

Work on the South Lanarkshire development will begin next year and is scheduled to run until 2011.

As part of the scheme, specialist contractors will also be building replacement schools.

Mr Pretty said: "New homes for all sectors of the market, alongside new state-of-the-art schools, can only be tremendously good news for the South Lanarkshire area, where new housing is in seriously short supply."

Disposal of the redundant South Lanarkshire school sites is part of the wider upgrading and funding of schools in Scotland.

In total, Barratt will build 1,400 apartments and houses on 85 acres of former school land, including flats and terraced houses aimed at first-time buyers. The starting price will be at less than pounds 100,000.

Newcastle construction firm Amec will be building new schools on or near the old sites.

The company is generating an increasing share of its turnover from building affordable homes as part of regeneration schemes.

It has agreed contracts on 58 key new sites across England, Scotland and Wales in recent months to produce more than 9,000 new homes with a development value of pounds 1.5bn.

The South Lanarkshire project is the largest of them.

Others include Whitworth Park in Spennymoor, County Durham, for 800 homes, and major brownfield sites in Crayford, Kent (440 homes), Harlow, Essex (530), and Swansea, South Wales (340).

Barratt came second in The Journal Top 200 North-East companies last month, thanks to its pounds 2.5bn turnover. Underlying pre-tax profits rose to pounds 163.9m from pounds 157.1m for the half-year to December.