Leonard is chairman of Newton Abbot based Enelco which took on some of Rok’s contracts in the south west when the firm went bust last year.

Enelco is now expanding its EBC construction division and the move has seen a third of Rok Torquay’s former workforce taken on by the firm.

Andy Braund, the former manager of Rok Torquay, is now the operation director at the Newton Abbot firm.

He told the South Devon Herald Express: “It was a great shame when Rok went bust. It was a wonderful business.

“It was very upsetting to see our friends and colleagues disappear.

“It’s great to get something going again and rebuild what we had.”

Braund said Enelco/EBC had picked up some of the projects left by Rok and was now picking up new trade.

These include Teignmouth’s new £1m flagship museum building, a £1m house in Salcombe and a £500,000 industrial unit in Exeter.

John Mellitt, Enelco managing director and a former Rok regional director, said: “We started a small building division at the end of 2009 and grew sales to £1.2m by the end of September.

“In November 2010 Rok went into administration. I made contact with my ex Rok colleagues at Torquay with a view to joining forces and creating a new business within the Enelco Group. Seventeen people joined including 12 tradesmen.”

In 2011 Enelco will turn over approximately £6m.

Mellitt added: “We are an interesting group of shareholders and when Rok went down, I was very keen to keep Andy’s team together.

“Hence we brought them on board and all worked very hard to keep the clients who had been caught by Rok’s collapse in the loop.

“With their help, the sites were only closed for two weeks. We have subsequently won a lot of work, both smaller scale maintenance projects and larger building contracts, the largest being a £1.2m house in East Portlemouth.”