Bob wins major construction project

Bob The Builder is to take on his biggest project to date – by building an entire town from scratch, it was announced today.

With the aid of his twin brother Tom he will take on the mammoth construction project, as well as trying to fix it for programme maker Hit Entertainment which saw profits from Bob take a slight hammering in recent months.

Bob fans will also see the introduction of several new characters who will join regulars including Scoop, Muck, Dizzy and Wendy.

Tom, Bob’s zoologist twin, will be seen for the first time in a festive special A Christmas To Remember, which is coming out on DVD next month.

He will later be seen helping out with Bob’s bid to build a whole community. Programme makers said today that the plans were still at an early stage and further details would emerge over the coming months.

It may be either part of the regular series or the basis of a one-off special.

Hit has announced there will be 10 further series featuring Bob, whose catchphrase is “can we fix it?”.

The gang of characters in the show has recently been expanded with the addition of Mr Stevens the archaeologist, Pam Goody who runs the arts centre and Katie Thatcher, the thatcher.

The extra push for Bob comes as worldwide revenues for the chirpy builder dipped by more than 12%.

He accounts for around 30% of sales for Hit, which also owns kids characters such as Pingu and Rubbadubbers.

The firm said interest in Bob had peaked on both sides of the Atlantic. However Revenue from Hit’s home entertainment sales generally grew by 23% worldwide, with about 16 million videos and DVDs sold during the financial year.