QSs grow regional arms

Davis Langdon has won a four-year framework from Sanctuary Housing Group to provide cost and project management for a £350m development programme in England, Scotland and Wales. The other consultancies chosen were Faithful+Gould, Turner & Townsend and McBains Cooper.

The scheme will focus on regeneration, refurbishment, care home, university and NHS Trust accommodation projects and is expected to begin this month. Davis Langdon has assigned the job to its Peterborough office, which recently hired a raft of new recruits.

Andrew Clarke, Mark Green and Simon Wicken have joined as project managers while Martin Kirk and Jason Pateman join as cost manager and trainee cost manager respectively. Alex Manuel has been appointed as a building surveyor.

The Peterborough office recently won contracts from Defra and the Orton shopping centre.

Paul Houghton, partner for the office, said: "These two recent framework commissions are good building blocks to underpin future growth planned for our office."

Meanwhile, Cyril Sweett's Birmingham branch has set out a growth strategy targeting a 20% increase in turnover and staff during the coming 12 months.

Ian Pocock, director of cost consultancy and head of the Birmingham office, said he is looking to recruit around eight QSs and project managers at various levels of seniority. He plans to bring his 42-strong team up to 50 in the course of the financial year beginning in April.

Pocock said he also hoped to increase the office's turnover by continuing to build up business in the retail sector, which is the branch's strongest client segment.

Current projects include the £160m Shires shopping centre in Leicester for Hammerson and the £20m Willow Place mall in Corby for Land Securities.

Pocock said the firm was bidding for, or at the early stages of work, on several other Midlands retail schemes, ranging in value from £160m to £20m.

Pocock declined to reveal the Birmingham office's turnover but the firm's annual report last month showed that group turnover was £36.4m for the year to March 2005, up 18.5% from £30.7m the previous year.

The company recently opened offices in Exeter and Cambridge, and is understood to be looking at setting up an office in the Northeast.

Cyril Sweett's recent contract wins include the £1bn Titanic Quarter development, which it claims is the largest mixed-use waterfront development in Europe.