Balfour Beatty snaps up affordable housing specialist in £10.3 million takeover

The UK's biggest builder, Balfour Beatty, today bolstered its regional arm with a £10.3 million takeover of Strata Construction.

Doncaster-based Strata, a mostly family-owned firm founded 90 years ago, specialises in affordable housing work.

Balfour said the company would be added to its Mansell building operation, which currently has little presence in the affordable housing market in Yorkshire.

In 2008 Strata made pre-tax profits of £1.3 million on turnover of £33.5 million, according to its latest accounts.

The firm has looked to offset great uncertainty over clients committing to projects in the recession by building up more long-term relationships with customers.

Strata works closely with housing associations across the region, as well as carrying out regeneration projects and contracts in the health and education sector.

The business was originally set up in 1919 by Oscar Weaver and is now chaired by his grandson Irving Weaver, who is worth £46 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

He rebranded the business Strata in 2002 and retains the company's housing development business.

News of the deal comes a day after Balfour Beatty chalked up a clutch of education contracts worth £191 million.

The firm will build two schools in Greenwich, south-east London, in a £100 million deal under the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme.

One of the schools in the Olympic borough will be equipped with a gym which meets the needs of national gymnastics and judo associations and has qualified as a 2012 training camp.

The firm will also build four schools in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, worth £91 million under a separate deal. The schools are in Shotts, Coatbridge and two in Airdrie.