BETT Homes has poached five senior staff from rivals to take charge of a major corporate restructuring as it makes a bid to become the biggest housebuilder in Scotland.

The Stirling-headquartered company claims to have already moved from the ninth largest player into the top five list since it was acquired by Gladedale Group for pounds-94 million and taken private in 2003.

Bett built 1010 homes last year, a 35-per cent increase over 2003.

But the company estimates it would have to increase its count by more than 400 units a year to overtake Persimmon, the number one builder in Scotland.

Sandy Anderson, regional chairman for Bett Scotland, said the company now needed to split its Scottish operations into two divisions, each with its own management team, to achieve this goal.

He said: "We aim to be the number one builder in Scotland. We're in the top five now.

When Gladedale took us over we were eighth or ninth. The potential for further growth can only be achieved by splitting the business in this way." Bett has recruited staff from rivals Persimmon, Barratt East Scotland, Stewart Milne, Wimpey West Scotland and Wimpey East Scotland to fill out its two new board of directors for the separate businesses.

The northeast division will be based in a new 30-person office in Dundee Technology Park and headed by former Wimpey East commercial director Sandy McBride. This will mean a return to the city of Bett's birth as the company was originally founded in Dundee in 1946 by the Bett brothers John, Albert and Stewart.

The Central Scotland division will remain in Stirling and be headed by Jim Kirkpatrick.

Anderson predicts that the two divisions will produce 1100 homes and flats in 2005. The Central Scotland division will then be further divided into east and west in 2006.

Gladedale Group directors David Gaffney and Remo Dipre, who have been aggressively expanding throughout the UK through acquisitions, have an ambitious game plan to build between 1500 and 2000 residential units annually in Scotland within three years.

Anderson said the target was achievable despite a slow down in house-price inflation and the slowness of the planning system to release new plots of land. Bett already has 4000 plots with a planning designation. He said: "The housing market in Scotland is strongly driven by the fact there is still a shortage of supply. I don't think we will suffer the traumas of the southeast." The management team at Bett have kept a low media profile since Gladedale Group took over two years ago, preferring to build up its position by expanding into city centre developments along with its more traditional family home territory. Turnover increased from pounds-110m in 2003 to pounds-165m in 2004 and was projected to hit pounds-200m in 2005. However, he refused to reveal profit figures.