The firm blamed weakness in the construction market as turnover tumbled to £38.5m from £42.4m.

But Latchways bosses are seeing hopeful signs in the construction sector and are confident of better figures this year.

Chairman Paul Hearson said: “This has been a challenging year for Latchways.

“The underlying weakness in our traditional construction markets along with delays in large projects produced a weak second half to the year.

“We believe these setbacks to be temporary and we have continued to invest in the business.

“We are seeing signs of increased early stage activity in the UK construction market.

“This will take time to feed through to improved business for Latchways as our products are normally required at the end of a new build or refurbishment project.

“This is nevertheless an encouraging development for the future.”