NORTH Yorkshire civil engineering firm SB Utilities has launched a new steel fabrication division to supply the local construction market.

An initial £150,000 investment in premises and equipment has been made by the business, based in Lingerfield near Knaresborough, in launching SBu Fabrication, in a move aimed at filling a gap in the local fabricated metal work market.

SB Utilities has extended its premises with a newly-built 3,400 sq ft workshop and equipment for the first phase of SBu Fabrication, which it expects to develop throughout Yorkshire and create new jobs.

Also included as part of the initial investment is a new five-tonne overhead gantry crane for moving steel items and a new metal working machine for pounding and cropping steel in the fabrication process.

SBu Fabrication, which has full CAD facilities, takes what was previously an in-house service at SB Uiltities in which items, such as metal piping, staircases and gantries were supplied for the wider company’s work for customers, including Yorkshire Water Services, and Severn Trent Costains and creates a new stand-alone division trading independently.

SBu fabrication manager Andy Cooke, said: "The new division provides a badly-needed local supplier for intricate and structured metal work to local house and commercial builders, civil engineers, detail specificiers and architects."

SBu Fabrication has already completed three major contracts, providing a range of fabricated steel and construction work for a new kitchen and ancillary areas at Betty’s cookery school, in Harrogate, the extension of the GNC Stadium for Harrogate Town Football Club and the staircases and gantries for Goole Carr Lane flood elevation works.

Mr Cooke added: “These were comprehensive schemes but our main business will come from supplying smaller, one-off items, from structural steelwork to architectural ironwork, for local builders as part of the construction supplies network."

SB Utilities was established in 2002. The company’s current services include civil engineering, metal fabrication, building and maintenance, feasibility studies and design for customers including Severn Trent Costains Ltd, Yorkshire Water Services, University of York, Taylors of Harrogate, PPP Infrastructure, Driffield Showground, HM Prison Service, Harrogate Town FC and Morgan Sindall Grontmij