I & H Brown has seen expansion out of Scotland pay off with a two-thirds rise in turnover to £55m, while pre-tax profit rose 75 per cent to £2.1m.

The Perthshire-based landowner and civil engineer currently has a £28m order book, up from £23m a year ago, and its property development arm contributed its first profit last year, chairman Scott Brown has said.

“We would not be surprised to see turnover at £60m this year,” Mr Brown said.

“Our order book is healthy, and the split is that roughly half is coming from England and Wales. In the past our turnover was predominantly Scottish but in the foreseeable future we will see half of our work coming from across the Border.”

The group has promoted Nigel Taylor as divisional managing director in the south and recruited Alvar Kenwell to run the Scottish division.

Mr Brown added: “There has been pressure on margins but we are seeing prices and rates starting to improve a little bit, and that is reflected in the amount of work that is around, we are seeing more general civil engineering and development work taking place South of the Border than up here.”

I & H Brown was founded in 1964 on a disused aerodrome bought by farming brothers Ian, who died last year aged 87, and Mr Brown's father Hardie, 85.

The family-owned group moved into northern England in 2007, and now also has an operation in Berkshire, but its biggest project is a contract for Leeds council to carry out early work on its major Kirkstall Forge development, now worth £9m. Mr Brown said Brown’s £6m contract to build a hydro-electric scheme at Cia Aig near Lochaber for German utility RWD was making “reasonable progress despite the wet weather”.

Although the group is not looking for new projects in wind farm infrastructure, Mr Brown said some facilities might begin to upgrade their turbines. “You might anticipate that some wind farms would perhaps start to repower to larger machines, because they are more efficient.” He said a new less generous subsidy regime might prompt operators to scrutinise their efficiency more closely. “There is a slowdown but we would not see the work disappearing.”

A sale to SSE of Brown’s North Calliacher site in Perthshire has fallen through, but the group expects to secure a grid connection.

Brown’s property division, headed by former Taylor Wimpey executive Allan Miller, has a portfolio including major housing sites at Dunfermline and Kelty, in its original Fife heartland, which are now coming on stream. It also holds the the former ABB industrial site at Dundee and the historic Banknock brickworks site near Falkirk, both acquired before the downturn and extensively remediated by Brown as longer-term investments.

Mr Brown said: “We are starting to see a contribution coming through from development. We hope to see some work begin on site at Dunfermline this summer, and Banknock is progressing.”

He said the group’s shareholder funds were up by £1m to £39.7m, and the cash position was “very healthy”.