One of Scotland's market leaders in the management and construction of city and town centre regeneration projects has launched a new specialist stone division.

Around 50 jobs will be created by Land Engineering's new department.

The firm, which employs 500 people at its offices in Fenwick, Grangemouth and Edinburgh, has opened a fourth office in Livingston, which will be the new headquarters of Stone Engineering.

Stone Engineering will provide a specialist service within the natural stone industry and will extend Land Engineering's well established portfolio of civil engineering, public realm, environmental regeneration and renewal schemes, grounds maintenance and soft landscaping services.

The division is expected to play a significant role in Land Engineering's growth plans for the year ahead, with the firm predicting a turnover this year of £47m, an increase of 23% on last year, with profits up by £800,000.00 to £2m. This represents an effective doubling of turnover and a five fold increase in profits since 2005.

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As part of the growth strategy, the business constantly seeks to improve their management structure to add benefit to its operations. To facilitate this, they have appointed Janette Anderson, former Chief Executive of First Engineering to the Board of Directors.

Managing director John Ronald said the firm has a strong order book for the year ahead despite the economic downturn: "A large proportion of our secured work for the year ahead is providing an extensive range of design and construction solutions in relation to urban renewal and regeneration projects which can range from large scale civil engineering contracts to soft landscaping of play parks and recreational areas.

"With the introduction of Stone Engineering, we will be extending our range of services, and our expertise in natural stone by providing an unrivalled offering to our public and private sector clients in Scotland and the North of England."

Charles Barrett, who is the commercial director at Land Engineering, will head up Stone Engineering and he is supported by former joint managing directors of Watson Stonecraft, Graeme Hadden and Ian Wilkinson. Together they will form the senior management team responsible for overseeing Stone Engineering’s services, which will include traditional masonry, cladding work and leading edge Rainscreen façades for new build construction; repair and restoration services in stone masonry for historic buildings, internal flooring and surveying, procurement, stone selection, reporting and design.

(GK/JM)