The building business reported a £1m pre-tax profit last year on revenue up a fifth at £150m.

Overall, Seddon Solutions group, which also includes Seddon Homes, doubled reported profits at £5.1m from revenue from the year up from £170m to £205m in 2016.

Seddon Homes delivered the main profit upswing after raising turnover 11% to £43.5m.

The improvement left the group with year-end cash of £22m.

Colin Graham, group finance director, said: “The group has benefitted from less reliance on the competitive tender market and a continued focus on improvement applied to project delivery and commercial procedures at all levels.

“The outlook for 2017 is positive with a strong order book and reasonable visibility of profits on current projects.”

Over the year staff numbers remained stable at 720.

The highest paid director received £302,000, up 13% on the previous year.

Seddon Group chief executive, Jonathan Seddon, said: “We’re obviously delighted that Seddon has returned to profit following a challenging few years for the industry.

“What’s even more pleasing is we’re seeing the benefits of structural changes, in particular empowering our regional directors and the influence of managing director, Peter Jackson.

“These results are a vindication of Seddon’s emphasis on investing in customer relationships and our people, and we will continue to seek to develop repeat custom from long-term partnerships.”