Fast-expanding Great Yarmouth construction company Bateman Groundworks has been shortlisted in the 2016 Lloyds Bank National Business Awards.

The company, which provides groundworks and civil engineering for blue chip house builders, has enjoyed 30pc year-on-year growth for the last three years.

And it expects the same this year as it works on 14 contracts, with another seven in the wings. Current work includes developments for Persimmon Homes, Bovis Homes, Taylor Wimpey and Hopkins Homes, right across East Anglia from Cambridge to Aylsham and Great Yarmouth to King’s Lynn.

To gear up for future contracts, the growing company, which will have a £20.5m turnover for 2016, is recruiting another 40 staff to bolster its 180-strong workforce based at refurbished offices at Marine Park, on Gapton Hall Road.

Bateman Groundworks is a finalist for the Small to Medium-sized Business of the Year. The finalists will now prepare for live presentations to an expert judging panel who will decide the overall winners announced on November 15.

Managing director Richard Bateman, who set up the company 19 years ago with just a desk and a phone, said: “We are thrilled to be recognised in the Lloyds awards, because we are still a relatively small regional business.”

It is the second major award boost for Bateman Groundworks this year. In February it was named among the London Stock Exchange Group’s 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain. The listing flagged it up as one of the most inspiring, dynamic and high-growth small and medium sized businesses in the country for the second consecutive year.