Founded when brothers Ian and Hardie Brown bought a disused Fife aerodrome in 1963, the group has won half of its new orders in the English civil engineering market, and is progressing plans for major housing developments.

The company has grown to be one of Scotland’s leading mini-conglomerates, with interests in civil engineering, property, farming and energy, turning over more than £35m and making a £6m profit last year.

Ian’s son Scott Brown, chief executive, told The Herald: “I don’t think we have ever had as big an order book secured.”

Mr Brown said it was partly down to an improving marketplace, but also due to the firm making inroads into the North of England, from a base established in 2007 just as the market was about to slump.

“The Warrington office is making more impact. It has been going seven years and it takes time.”

Whilst the company made no comment during the referendum campaign, Mr Brown said a yes vote could have affected the English business. “Separation would have presented challenges, it could have created a barrier or hurdles that we would then have had to overcome.”

The civils division is currently busy with Miller Developments on a business park site at Dyce near Aberdeen, has landed a £6m contract for a hydro-electric scheme near Fort William, and hopes to bid in joint venture for the A9 upgrading. Mr Brown said: “We are starting to see work coming through from National Grid, which tends to be site remediation and clean-up work.”

On margins, he said: “It is still pretty competitive but things have improved slightly.”

I & H Brown was involved in a planning tussle with Perth & Kinross Council four years ago over its Calliacher wind farm, sold to Perth neighbour SSE only after a lengthy appeal process saw the council’s refusal overturned by the Scottish Government. Now the council has rejected an application for an extension to the wind farm, much to Mr Brown’s chagrin. “I was astounded they refused it, given that the officers recommended it and the local community council was supportive,” he said.

“This is what is holding us back, these are the problems that people have with the planning.”

Allan Miller, the former Taylor Wimpey executive who heads the group’s property division, said he was “very encouraged and excited about future prospects” as the market improves.

In Dunfermline, I & H Brown’s original heartland where the founding brothers grew up, Fife council has proposed a potential doubling of housing plots, and the firm expects to get planning permission for a major mixed-use site with 1,084 houses by the end of the year.

Mr Miller said he was also very pleased to see a further 900 housing plots zoned at Kelty, while nearer Perth a deal had been settled to acquire a 50 per cent holding in an allocated housing site of over 100 acres.

He added: “The division is busy with many other large-scale projects throughout the country, focused mainly on housing and some retail and commercial development.

“We are also progressing smaller-scale development proposals.”

The company is also hopeful of progress on major sites acquired before 2008, notably the former ABB industrial site at Dundee and the historic Banknock brick-works site near Falkirk.