Balfour Beatty, Britain’s biggest builder, has received a boost from Public Private Partnership (PPP) infrastructure contracts worth more than £6.5 billion in the past six months.

In a half-year update, the group reported yesterday that it had secured finance for large contracts and was trading in line with expectations, despite tougher conditions and greater competition for orders. The total value of its order book stood at £12.8 billion to June 30.

Among some of the lucrative PPP projects for which it has obtained financing this year are a £170 million contract for Fife General Hospital, £200 million from the Southwark Schools for the Future programme and a share of work on the £6.2 billion extension of the M25 through the Connect Plus consortium.

Work to widen the north east quadrant of the motorway began in May and was due to be finished in time for the 2012 Olympic Games, but the entire project would take 30 years to complete, Balfour said.

The group’s involvement in PPP contracts comes at a time when builders are battling hard to win public sector project work, as there are fewer privately funded projects to go around. Andy Brown, an analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: “Public sector spend is the most important factor in construction at the moment. Private sector work won’t come back for a few years.”

Track renewal contracts with Network Rail and London Underground will bring in a further £210 million, despite a fall in volumes in rail markets in Briatin and Germany, while Balfour highlighted the strength of its building work in the United States, with new contracts in North Carolina, Texas and California. It added that RT Dooley, the North Carolina-based construction company that it bought in February for $40 million, was proceeding well.

There were signs yesterday that cracks were beginning to show elsewhere in the construction industry. Grafton, a smaller builder with exposure to the beleaguered Irish residential market, said that profits were down by 31 per cent in the first half of the year.

Marshalls, which specialises in home improvement and garden building supplies, published a 21 per cent drop in first-half revenue yesterday, adding that wider economic pressures would cancel out the benefits of a seasonal boost from the hot weather for DIY garden supplies.

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