The firm,  which is the key operating business in the Spencer Engineering Group, returned a £1.8m pre-tax profit this year after booking a £9.8m loss last year on the Tyneside wood pellet handling and storage facility.

Revenue fell by over a quarter to just £54m in what chairman and founder Charlie Spencer described as a year of consolidation.

Average headcount at the railway engineering and bridge repair specialist fell from 314 to 254 staff.

The improved trading in the year to 31 March 2019 saw net debt reduced slightly from £4.9m to £3.5m.

Spencer said: “The company enters the new financial year with secured work in hand of £77m and a pipeline of £213m from which to draw its opportunities.

‘The company continues to trade profitably as at the date of this report, and the directors see this profitability as being sustainable given the levels and mix of both secured work and the future pipeline.”