A COATINGS company that won a £5m contract to paint the Forth Rail Bridge is expecting to achieve a record turnover this year.

Hugh Pelham, managing director of Pyeroy, in Gateshead, said company turnover was likely to reach £48m by the end of the year, compared with £43m last year.

He attributed the increase to organic growth and three acquisitions made in the past 18 months.

Pyeroy announced it had secured another three-year contract to repaint part of the Forth Rail Bridge.

The bridge is Scotland's largest listed structure and has been painted red since it opened in 1890.

Because of the scale and complexity of the job, the task of maintaining the paintwork along its one-and-a-half mile length has become a metaphor for a never-ending task.

Pyeroy has worked on the bridge for the past three-and-a-half years as part of a continuing civil engineering and structural refurbishment programme being undertaken by main contractor Belfour Beatty for Network Rail.

"In the past, the bridge refurbishment was done on an ad hoc basis, but this programme will be finished in seven years' time and the paint should last for 15 years." said Mr Pelham.

Pyeroy's painting operations recently expanded with the acquisition of the industrial division of Palmers, in Scotland, which had annual sales of £1.6m.

That came after the acquisitions of Uprite Structures, in Ireland, and North West Scaffolding, in Liverpool, last year.

Pyeroy, which employs nearly 300 people in the North-East, operates specialist divisions that provide marine coatings, scaffold- ing, construction, insulation and asbestos removal services.

Mr Pelham said: "We have a strong order book and we are anticipating a good year next year."