Loan package lets Purvis expand recycling across Central Belt

PURVIS Group, the Fife-based construction services firm, is expanding its recycling business across the Central Belt after securing a seven-figure lending package from Clydesdale Bank.

The company’s Eagle Recycling subsidiary already has bases at Bowhill and Langside in Fife and at Denny, near Falkirk, which together process about 350,000 tonnes of aggregates and other construction materials each year.

Now chairman Bob Purvis, who launched his business in 1980 as a plant hire company, wants to add a further two or three sites to its operations in central Scotland over five years.

Lochgelly-based Purvis Group – which lists Barratt Developments and Miller Homes among its clients – has expanded to provide a range of services to construction companies, from demolition and drainage work through to haulage and steel cladding.

Purvis said: “Over the past 30 years we have increased the number of services we provide. We have sought to grow the business steadily and consistently and now we are looking to expand our raw material recycling division geographically.”

Group turnover was at a standstill £15.1 million in the year to 31 March against £15.2m in the previous 12 months.

Purvis blamed “bad debts” from the “difficult trading conditions within the construction industry” for a slight widening in its pre-tax losses to £90,000 from £76,000.

Billy MacLeod, Clydesdale Bank’s managing partner in Lanarkshire, said support for the firm was coming through its “investing for growth strategy” and would include loans and an overdraft.

Other companies to have benefited from the lender’s strategy in the past year include Largs-based Maritime Craft Services, which secured £20m to expand its off-shore support fleet, and Glasgow-based restaurant chain Di Maggio’s, which netted £15m. Di Maggio’s reopened its outlet on Glasgow’s Mitchell Street last year and opened a Amarone-branded bar on the corner of George Street and St Andrew Square in Edinburgh.