Based in Swinton, Mexborough, George Hurst & Sons developed from carrying out plumbing and sanitary engineering services to full building and contracting work.

Despite its size, Hurst was one of only 16 contractors in the UK to be accepted onto the CITB backed National Federation of Builders BIM Exemplar Programme.

Its efforts were rewarded with recognition as a BIM 2 ready exemplar company.

But the regional builder never really recovered its financial stability after a management buyout almost a decade ago. This extinguished once healthy reserves replacing it with a £900,000 debt, which Hurst failed to recover from.

Saddled with debt, Hurst was unprepared for the economic downturn, struggling to compete on price with its competitors.

By 2015, the £13m turnover builder failed to renew its Yorbuild framework position, which accounted for nearly three quarters of workload.

By early 2017, Hurst saw project start delays as its old framework pipeline dried up. Losses on three 2016 projects proved higher than expected leading to it ceasing trading ahead of administrators being called by secured creditor NatWest Bank in April.

All 57 staff at the business were made redundant.

According to the latest report from administrators from Begbies Traynor, the outcome for unsecured creditors is not yet known and depends on the sale of the company’s freehold sites and the level of debt collections.