Willmott Dixon, based on Dukesway, Team Valley Trading Estate, is already a major employer in the area and recently delivered the £110 million BSF schools programme in Middlesbrough, along with five leisure centres with swimming pools for Gateshead Council. It also made national headlines by building the first ever BREEAM outstanding healthcare facility at Houghton le Spring.

The company is very visible in Newcastle as the main contractor building the new city centre police headquarters for Northumbria Police Authority on a site adjacent to the East Coast mainline station on Forth Banks. In addition, it is currently working on Redcar’s iconic vertical pier and the wider regeneration of Redcar town centre for Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

Ewen says of his new role, “The significant expansion of Willmott Dixon in the North East has been very impressive and has created nearly 100 new jobs, including mine. They are one of the UK’s largest privately owned construction companies and I was very excited when they outlined their plans for North East growth. It is for these reasons that I wanted to work for Willmott Dixon and I am delighted to have managed to realise that aspiration’.

Prior to joining Willmott Dixon, Ewen managed the North East office of Ashley House PLC, a specialist developer in the primary care medical sector. In addition, Ewen has a background in social housing and extra care development from a main contractor perspective and substantial public sector experience in capital build development works for county councils and local authorities.

Willmott Dixon is targeting construction work for both private and public sector clients in a range of sectors including commercial offices, health and leisure centres, schools, retail outlets and mixed-use work.

It also brings with it the Scape framework to save public sector customers time and money in the procurement process as they don’t need to spend time procuring via the OJEU process. Willmott Dixon believes it has saved £140,000 for every £1m spent on a project procured via the Scape framework, with all Scape projects delivered on time and on budget in the last 5 years and an average of 53% of project budget is spent within 20 miles of all Scape sites, equating to £191m re-invested into local communities which is the equivalent of 10,857 apprentices employed.

This year Willmott Dixon will turnover £32m in the North East.