Contractor also seeing continued problems with waste jobs

Contractor May Gurney will see its revenues for the first half of the year hit by the wet weather, which has forced it to delay a number of highways jobs.

In a statement made in advance of today’s annual general meeting, chair Margaret Ford said that the “unseasonably wet weather has led to a proportion of our highways work being delayed. As a result, we envisage that the balance of our performance will be weighted to the second half”.

The company, which has a financial year running from March 31, did not say how much work was being delayed.

In addition Ford said the firm was continuing to have problems with recently won waste collection jobs, called MaGOS, as announced previously in June. These problems are thought to exist on the firm’s £126m Cheshire West and Chester Council contract and £96m Bristol City Contract.

Ford said: “We will continue to focus significant effort on ensuring that the operational issues relating to these MaGOS contracts are effectively managed which will require additional time, support and resources.”

In other respects Ford said the £695m turnover contractor was performing “broadly in line with expectations,” and that its management was now focusing on growing margins, bedding in its restructure and dealing with its “operational issues”.

Its order book remained steady at £1.5bn.