Here at GEA, our customer base and workload has been steadily increasing in Manchester and the North West, and with a number of our engineering and architect partners recently establishing offices in the city, we are pleased to announce we are opening a third office in the UK, on Oxford Street in Manchester.

We are often told that we are at the “frontline” of a construction project, which clearly we are, and are therefore a bellwether for the state of the construction market in general. Again, probably true to a large extent.

At the start of 2003, Tony Blair was Prime Minister and was yet to have his Iraq problem, Girls Aloud had the No 1 single, London had no congestion charge, and Geotechnical & Environmental Associates (GEA) Limited started trading.