A.F. Budge was a British civil engineering and construction company based in Nottinghamshire. It built many sections of motorway in Yorkshire and the north Midlands.
History
Tony Budge went to Boston Grammar School, where he gained O-levels in English, English Literature, French, German, History, Geography,
Maths, and Physics with Chemistry in 1955.[1] He lived at 122 Tower Road in Boston.[2]
It was established by Tony Budge (9 August 1939 - 3 February 2010) in December 1962.[3] He was the older brother of Richard Budge, who established his coal mining business RJB Mining, also based in Bassetlaw. Richard Budge joined the company in 1966. Another director of the company was Janet Budge, Tony's wife. Tony had trained as a civil engineer with Holland County Council.[4] He had three daughters and a son, and married Janet Cropley, from Frith Bank, near Boston. He was a fellow of the ICE and IHT.[5] In the 1970s he lived at Meed House on North Road in Retford. In July 1984 his daughter Elizabeth married Christian Brash at Retford church.[6][7]
The company turned over £1.5m in 1968, when the company moved Retford to a former LNER engine depot. In January 1969, the Charterhouse Group bought 23% of the company. The company hoped to go public in the early 1970s. Tony Budge was given an OBE in the 1985 New Year Honours. In 1990, Tony Budge was Chairman of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors.[8]
RJB Mining was formed from a management buyout in February 1992 for £107m.
In 1991, it operated nine opencast mines. In August 1991, British Coal Opencast gave the company a £16m contract for its Colliersdean site in Northumberland.
A.F. Budge (Road Materials) Ltd went into well-publicised receivership on 9 December 1992, undertaken by Cork Gully, with £96.6m debts, under the Insolvency Act 1986.[10] As a road construction company, it was profitable, but the company made some disastrous investments in other areas in the late 1980s. During 1992 the company had reduced its debt by £30m, but blamed Barclays Bank for forcing it into receivership.
The company was bought by Alfred McAlpine Construction of Chester on Monday 4 January 1993, with 26 outstanding road contracts, according to its managing director Peter Hulmes. 250 of the 370 road-building employees were kept.[11][12]
The company, and RJB Mining, were investigated in the King Coal edition of Panorama on 1 May 1995. The civil engineering business was bought by Alfred McAlpine in January 1993.
Newcastle Technopole Business Centre, built by AF Budge (Estates), it now forms part of the Newcastle Helix
It built the Central Business and Technology Park in central Newcastle next to the A167(M) and the A193 junction; this became King's nor Central Business and Technology Park, on the site of a former railway station. Universal Building Society moved its HQ there in June 1992.
It built the Eureka! (museum) in West Yorkshire in the early 1990s.
A1(M)Lemsford - Welwyn (to the south end of the Stevenage bypass), 3.75 miles £2m, opened at 12pm on Friday 10 August 1973, nine months early, with dinner in the Heath Lodge Hotel[17]
Queen's Medical Centre access roads with Clifton Boulevard (A52), £760,000 Trent Regional Health Authority[20]
M621 Leeds South West Urban Motorway and Ingram Road Distributor £5.5m, connecting the M621 motorway spur to the north end of the M1, 4 km, five interchanges, to take 27 months, for West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council; work began on Monday 9 December 1974[21][22]
A516Etwall bypass (1992, work started Monday 14 January 1991), £2.66m, 1.25 miles, to take fifteen months,[44] opened two months early at 12.55pm on Thursday 6 February 1992 by Patrick McLoughlin, with Edwina Currie in attendance[45]
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