The cuts come just months after the company was handed a £30m loan by Homes England last November to hire more staff and ramp-up production.

It is understood around one sixth of ilke’s 600-strong workforce could be affected.

Dave Sheridan, executive chairman of ilke Homes, said: “Unfortunately, Covid-19 is forcing us to make some incredibly hard decisions right now to deal with delays to existing orders and a slow market.

“Our ability to fulfil client orders is unaffected and we have a strong pipeline, albeit we are having to work with clients to manage the impact on their own businesses.”

Last month ilke restructured with a homes and development division while also opening offices in London, Bristol and Birmingham.

Sheridan said: “The restructure we recently announced was about diversifying our business geographically and offering a turnkey development service to clients.

“Our pipeline remains strong, our funders are fully behind us and we continue to see offsite manufacturing playing a critical role in driving Britain’s recovery.”

Latest accounts for the company show it posted a pre-tax loss of £22.3m for the year to March 31 2019 on a turnover of £2.6m.