THE owner of Cheshire plant hire group A-Plant has seen profits fall as construction work dries up thank to the recession.

Ashtead today reported a full-year profit of £87.4m, down 22% on the previous year, though revenues rose 2% to £1.07bn.

It said the shortage of finance for private sector commercial development meant such work was in short supply, but said public sector and utility work was holding up.

A-Plant, which employs 90 people at its Warrington base, has depots in Liverpool, Bootle and Haydock. It saw annual revenues fall 8% to £191m.

Ashtead's chief executive Geoff Drabble said: "Market conditions weakened further during the fourth quarter. Revenues in both the US and UK markets were adversely affected by lower volumes and yields although we continued to benefit from the stronger dollar.

“Whilst infrastructure and utility work continues to hold up, the relative lack of finance available for private sector commercial development makes it inevitable that construction volumes overall will remain weak.

“Our business model and capital structure are designed to cope with the cyclical nature of our markets so we were well prepared for this downturn and this is reflected in our robust performance.

“We took prompt action to control costs and also to address fleet size which is helping us sustain good utilisation.

“May and early June have seen rental volumes in line with our expectations whilst rental yields have shown some tentative signs of flattening month on month.”