In 1985, he succeeded his father Sir
Kirby Laing as chairman of John Laing plc. His uncle,
Sir Maurice Laing, had also been chairman. Martin Laing was
knighted in the
New Year Honours 1997 for services to the construction industry. Laing remained executive chairman of the family firm until 2001 when its construction arm was sold for £1 to one of its subcontractors, concrete firm O'Rourke, run by
Ray O'Rourke. The John Laing construction business was considered one of the blue-riband contractors of its day, having built high-profile schemes including the
Second Severn Crossing, the
Barbican Centre and the
Sizewell B nuclear power station, and its sale was expected to fetch upwards of £100m. However, the business was facing a series of losses, eventually totalling £200m, on several jobs including
Cardiff's
Millennium Stadium, the
National Physical Laboratory, a disastrous
PFI scheme in
Teddington, west London, and
No 1 Poultry in the
City of London. As part of the deal, O'Rourke left most of the problem contracts with John Laing, and created
Laing O'Rourke. Laing was chair of the Trust for more than three decades. He also served as chair of the
British Overseas Trade Board from 1995 to 1999, and chair of
World Wide Fund for Nature UK from 1990 until 1997. He was elected to the
Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 1986 and was the society's president in 2008. Laing died in Malta on 27 December 2023, at the age of 81. ==References==