Costain’s education business has been hit by the departure of its director “to pursue other opportunities”.

Jeremy Eavis had been at the contractor for five years. He was previously a regional director at the company, before being appointed education director.

It is understood that a replacement for Eavis has not yet been found, although the company expects to make an appointment imminently.

Education became a key area for the company after its March 2006 restructuring. This was initiated by Andrew Wyllie, Costain’s chief executive, after problems that led to a pre-tax loss of £61.7m in the year ending 31 December 2006. The loss was due in part to a £11.9m writedown in its building division, and losses in and the closure of its international division at a cost of £27.3m.

The aim of the restructuring was to focus the business around markets rather than regions. Those targeted included education, health and retail, and PFI projects in the water and roads sectors.

Costain’s schools work includes a PFI contract for the south London borough of Lewisham under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, where it is working with VT Education and Skills as the part of the Learning 21 consortium.

Jeremy Eavis has left to pursue other opportunities costain

The first phase of capital works is worth £56m to Costain and subsequent phases are expected to be worth about £210m.

The firm has also won work on the £400m Bradford BSF programme. Its first three schools were worth more than £70m.

The firm is thought to be interested in bidding for a place on the government’s city academies framework, to be set up early next year.

The framework, which presently contains six contractors, will expand to 10 firms to cope with a £4bn pipeline of work.

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