Tarmac Group face the recession of the early 1990s. In particular, the housing division continued to invest heavily in land even though the market had peaked, leading to provisions of £132m in that division alone. Like his predecessor before him, Pountain was forced to step down as chief executive to be replaced by Neville Simms, previously in charge of construction. Inevitably, the emphasis moved away from housing in favour of construction. In October 1992, Tarmac acquired the privatised government agency PSA Projects to complement Tarmac Construction. This was initially called TBV Consult (reflecting a short lived partnership between Tarmac and Black &
History of road transport the trusts and restrictions on the width of wheels - narrow wheels were said to cause a disproportionate amount of damage to the road. The quality of early turnpike roads was varied. Although turnpiking did result in some improvement to each highway, the technologies used to deal with geological features, drainage, and the effects of weather, were all in their infancy. Road construction improved slowly, initially through the efforts of individual surveyors such as John Metcalf in Yorkshire in the 1760s. British turnpike builders began to realise the importance of selecting clean stones for surfacing, and excluding vegetable material and