The announcement continues the changes being introduced by Mark Cutler, who joined the company as chief executive in August. He has also streamlined the operational structure of the £100m turnover AIM listed Group to five divisions: General Piling, Specialist Piling, Housing, Rail, and Geotechnical Services (trading as STRATA).

John Foster will join Van Elle as commercial director from Saint Gobain's glass and facade installations business. He will be responsible for all commercial activity in the Group as well as business development, estimating and procurement.

Peter Handley is returning to Van Elle to take up the newly created role of strategy and business improvement director which will see him lead Van Elle's strategic development, business improvement and innovation programmes.

In Van Elle's largest business unit, the General Piling division, director Steve Johnson leaves the Group at the end of November. He is replaced by Group Construction director David Warner on an interim basis. This follows the appointment of former Eastern Director Steve Bursnell as Contracts director last month.

"I am very pleased to welcome John Foster and Peter Handley to Van Elle at this important stage of our growth and wish to thank Steve Johnson for his contribution," said Cutler, commenting on the changes. "The company has been through a lot of change over the last couple of years but the new strengthened leadership team and streamlined divisional structure allows us to accelerate our improvement, more clearly focus on our customer's needs and better integrate our specialist capabilities across all the sectors we operate in."