The Enquirer understands that Proline was owed more than £1.5m for work carried out on Forrest sites.

Herbert T Forrest went into administration earlier this month after no buyers were found for the construction and housing divisions.

Manchester based Proline made a pre-tax profit of £468,000 from a turnover of £11.3m during the year to September 2017.

Administrators from business advisors Cowgills are now in charge of the company and all 100 staff have been made redundant.

Proline Group Managing Director Michael Fraser said: “We weren’t in a position to carry on and had to make this very sad decision.”

Fraser said he will be keeping the Proline name alive after securing the rights to use it in the maintenance sector.

He said: “It’s a question of going back to square one and trying to build things up again.

“I’m back on the tools where I started now working with three gas engineers in the maintenance sector where the company has a good name.

“Hopefully we can build things up in a controlled way and focus on smaller jobs.”