The firm has taken on an extra 20 staff with the commissioning of 45,000 sq ft Cut Shack facility.

The expansion comes as the family-owned steelwork firm reports an uplift in enquiries and recovering margins in the industry.

Simon Bingham, Caunton Engineering’s managing director, said: “At this stage the new Cut Shack is more about improving our efficiency than boosting capacity, but we are seeing a much improved market.”

He said that several distribution centre jobs had been picked up and a lot of town centre mixed-use regeneration schemes were coming out to bid.

“We gambled a few years ago that things couldn’t remain bad forever and we needed to be ready for when things picked up.”

The facility means Caunton, which traces its origins back to a blacksmiths in the village of Caunton, near Newark, 44 years ago, is now one of the UK’s biggest single site steelwork firms.

The firm now located on the site of the former Moorgreen Colliery in Nottingham turns over around £40m and employs 230 staff.