LIGHT at the end of the tunnel is dazzling for railway engineering consultancy White Young Green (WYG) which has a major office in York.

The group has announced spectacular half-year results, with its net order book up a record 52 per cent to £220 million.

The office in St Martin's Lane, which employs only 20 out of the 1,800 working for the organisation in the UK, Ireland and overseas, made a "significant contribution" to the sales, according to Jamie Scott, the York office director for WYG, which specialises in railway tunnels

He said: "Our involvement in a number of rail infrastructure schemes throughout the region for clients, including C Spencer at Neville Hill Depot in Leeds, and ongoing contracts for Network Rail across the London North Eastern territory, will ensure sustained growth for the office."

It follows on from an impressive turnover for the York office in the year to last June, when a £1,167,000 turnover yielded profits of £100,000.

The group's half-year results are also the fruits of a series of acquisitions in the second half of the last financial year, including IMC Consulting which has secured contracts worth more than £40 million gross since its takeover.

Two more acquisitions were completed last Monday, worth a total of £2.63 million. Into the corporate stable for WYG now comes Robert Long Consultancy with offices in Huddersfield, Cambridge and Southampton; and Wyn Thomas Gordon Lewis Limited, a town planning and urban regeneration consultancy based in Cardiff.

Other highlights of the half-year results were a 71 per cent increase in the net fee value of new orders to £69.5 million, with 60 per cent of estimated turnover for 2006 already secured.

Updated: 10:00 Thursday, March 03, 2005