The family-owned firm, which was formed in 1890, called in administrators from accountancy firm KPMG yesterday.

Bodill had been struggling for some time after work dried-up in its core market of general construction jobs up to a maximum contract size of £6m

Richard Philpott, who is handling the administration for KPMG’s restructuring division, told the Post: “Though the company has historically done quite a bit of public sector work, its problems have not been caused by the spending cuts.

“It used to do comparatively small-scale work for public sector clients and as the public sector has put these contracts into larger framework agreements over the past few years it has seen its turnover reduce, ending up working for the main contractor on these larger agreements.

“They have seen a pipeline of inquiries and orders but have not actually been able to get on with them. They have been losing money recently and they have taken the decision themselves to go into administration.”

Bodill & Sons has offices at Linby and Hucknall and administrators immediately made 77 people redundant. A small number of staff have been kept on to service live contracts.

North west building and civils contractor Jimsul Construction has also been placed in the hands of the receivers.

The north west builder worked for a number of clients in the region such as airbus, Muir group and various councils in the region where it was a prefered builder.

The firm was formed in 1976 by Jim Sullivan