Forth Ports, the Scottish ports-to-property business, yesterday unveiled a 38% surge in underlying pre-tax profit and said it had deferred almost 70% of its spending on property development because of the downturn in the market.

Forth Ports, the Scottish ports-to-property business, yesterday unveiled a 38% surge in underlying pre-tax profit and said it had deferred almost 70% of its spending on property development because of the downturn in the market.

However, Charles Hammond, Forth's chief executive, said he "didn't believe it will have a any impact" on the regeneration of the Edinburgh waterfront, the company's main project, at which nearly 16,000 homes are planned over the next 30 years.

Under the plan, nine so-called urban villages will be created, with the first to be placed beside Ocean Terminal. Along with housing, the new community will feature a range of leisure, retail and commercial developments - all of which is expected to attract some £6bn worth of private investment.

Hammond yesterday said: "It's not a short-term project, it's 25 to 30 years, so the current downturn does not give us cause for concern."

He said Forth had deferred between 60% to 70% of its property infrastructure spending because of the market downturn, and that it has delayed around £40m of spending on projects until at least 2010.

Hammond said: "This is not a cancellation, but simply a savvy business decision. We will still spend £10m a year.

"We are deferring infrastructure spend in light of market conditions."

Meanwhile, the decline in value of its property assets reduced the company's pre-tax profit for the six months to the end of June to £9m, compared with £12m last time.

Nonetheless, stripping out the fall in property value, Forth Ports' first-half underlying pre-tax profit surged 38% to £16.5m on the back of a strong performance from the group's ports.

The company noted a strong performance at its flagship Thames port of Tilbury, reflecting the "benefit of secure contracts, better mix of cargo and tight cost control".

It also highlighted an improved performance at its Scottish ports. Forth owns and operates seven commercial ports in the UK including Tilbury, Dundee in the Firth of Tay and five on the Firth of Forth - Leith, Grangemouth, Rosyth, Methil and Burntisland. It also operates from Chatham in Kent under the Nordic banner. Group revenues climbed 21% to £90.1m Hammond also said the outcome of a key bid to be selected as the east Britain logistics hub for the London Olympics in 2012 was expected in the coming weeks.

He said the contract would have a "significant impact" on the performance of Tilbury if it were awarded, because Tilbury would be the hub for all construction traffic for the multi-billion-pound venture coming from the east.

"We're already benefiting from the London Olympics," he said. "We're sending barges of bricks from Tilbury to the Olympic site now."

Shares in Forth climbed 0.6%, or 10p, to 1698p.

Meanwhile, Hammond declined to comment on whether the resignation last week of the chairman and chief executive of troubled Australian investment bank Babcock & Brown, which owns 20% of Forth Ports, made a takeover of Forth less likely.