Balfour closes three regional offices

International construction group Balfour Beatty's Rochdale office is to close as part of a cost-cutting programme across its UK operations.

Offices in Dartford and Doncaster will also close. Each office employs between 50 and 90 staff.

Balfour Beatty acquired the Rochdale operation from the administrators of Rok in 2010 and badged it under its Mansell brand. Rok had bought the business for £40m in 2008 from Richardson Projects.

There remain Balfour Beatty offices in Sale and Cheadle Hulme. The company is understood to be considering consolidating its regional offices in Warrington.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange on Monday morning, Balfour Beatty said: "Within the regional business a review of the viability of the 21 delivery units has been an area of particular focus. At our location in Dartford we have advised employees of our proposal to close this location due to a combination of insufficient construction activity and a disproportionately high cost base. This could result in a small number of job losses and the relocation of individuals. In the South West we are actively addressing specific operational issues across a handful of projects.

"As part of the wider business review, we have also identified that two smaller locations in Rochdale and Doncaster are no longer sustainable and again, employees have been advised of our proposal to close these offices. These three locations collectively account for around 8% of the UK regional business which generated £1.5bn of revenue in 2012."

The company has started the consultation processes at the three office locations affected and said it was too early to confirm the total number of redundancies that could be affected.

Meanwhile, former Bovis chief executive Nick Pollard will take over as chief executive of Balfour Beatty next week.

Shares in the company rose nearly 5% to 225.9p.