Directors at an old-established Oxfordshire building company are celebrating after landing contracts worth more than £50m.

Kingerlee, based at Kidlington, is working on projects across the county ranging from private homes to the redevelopment of Oxford's Park End Street.

The company, which operates within a 60-mile radius of Oxford, is expanding its own buildings, with work focused on providing accommodation for its accounts division. Overall staff numbers have also increased from 46 last year to 67.

Joint managing director Tony Woodward said: "We've a focused definition of growth and we will probably increase our staff numbers to about 100 in the near future.

"We have a turnover of £20m and we want to move that up to £35-40m."

But Mr Woodward stressed the company's growth would not be at the expense of its traditional customer base.

He added: "We have no ambition to become a national operator -- the predicted level of turnover represents our critical mass to sustain the volume of business we can rely on."

Kingerlee's contracts include eight schools, a new £3m common room for St John's College, Oxford, and the construction of a £1m headquarters for neighbouring developer JA Pye.

But the most high profile work is taking place around Park End Street, including work at the old Morrells Brewery site, which is being converted into 87 homes.

Next year workers will begin converting existing buildings into a four-storey office block, with a bar and restaurant fronting Park End Street.

Further flats will be developed in the Lower Fisher Row/ St Thomas's Street area.

The total value of those contracts is in excess of £20m.

Mr Woodward said: "We are really looking forward to the next two years - a lot of our work is on larger projects which is a policy we set out to apply a couple of years ago. That is proving successful."

The move to larger contracts has come as a milestone for the family firm which dates back to 1868 with current chairman Jonathan Kingerlee the fifth generation.

Last February, Michael Puttick, formerly deputy managing director of Try Construction, was taken on as a second managing director to grow the contract and development side of the business.