The firm, which carved out an existence working largely on the railway and London Underground station improvements and bridge repairs, has now been placed into administration.

The directors of the East Sussex firm, which was set up around eight years ago blamed a significant loss from one of the firms major contracts and effectively ceased trading at the end of November.

Neil Mather and Kirstie Provan of administrator Begbies Traynor (Central) will be investigating the affairs of the Metropex Group with the aim of maximising the realisation of assets for creditors.

Credit reference agency Top Service said it started to receive reports numerous reports from customers advising that they were experiencing difficulties with the company last month.

Louisa Morgan, Operations Manager, said: ”It is our insider intelligence that resulted in us monitoring the company carefully over the last few months.

“Being able to provide our customers with a early warning resulted in us being able to collect some accounts for them before it was too late.”