Following the successful rebranding of Hart Builders last April to Cruden Building (East), the management and operational teams from both Cruden Building East and West have been working together to establish a consistent construction offering.

Now, Cruden will consolidate its construction businesses across Scotland as 180 employees of Cruden Building (East) will transfer to Cruden Building (West) to create a single building business, consisting of almost 500 employees. In short order, this combined business will be renamed as Cruden Building (Scotland) Limited.

With a combined turnover of circa £170 million, the business will have the scale and operational capacity to further invest in its people and to meet the challenges of the changing construction landscape. This is especially relevant as the business progresses its sustainability and Modern Methods of Construction agendas.

The business will continue to operate from its two bases, in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and will consequently deploy its experienced workforce in the same way locally, with clients enjoying no interruption to existing and pipeline construction projects.

Since its formation in 1943, the Cruden Group has built or modernised over 135,000 homes for both public and private sectors. The group currently delivers around 1,200 properties every year - nearly one in fifteen of every home built in Scotland. Cruden is also currently delivering the design for the country’s first net zero housing development and is on site building Scotland’s first social housing development to ‘Passivhaus’ standard.

Allan Callaghan, managing director of the combined Cruden Building business, said: “One of our key focus areas is building sustainable, energy-efficient homes as Scotland aims to achieve net zero carbon building emissions by 2045. Bringing together the collective skills of our dedicated building workforce under one consistent construction offering will allow us to accelerate our efforts in delivering Scotland’s much needed Net Zero homes for the future.”

Cruden Group chief executive, Kevin Reid, said: “This is an important milestone in Cruden’s evolution and has been our strategic intent for a number of years. Creating a core construction business within the group, with common management and culture will deliver a huge number of benefits including greater consistency of approach, and facilitation of best practice and knowledge sharing as we strive to continually develop innovative ways of working.”