Small firms across the region are set to incur major financial impacts following the demise of construction group Tolent.
Some have already been forced to shed staff in the wake of the £197m turnover firm's collapse into administration on Monday. Speaking to BusinessLive, Gareth Hutchinson, director of County Durham-based bricklaying contractor High Rise Brickwork Ltd, said his firm had been working on multiple contracts for Tolent and had been forced to let 35 people go.
He said: "We've done projects for Tolent over the last three years which they owe us retention for, and which we'll never see, and that's never mind mortar bills and we were supplying them with forklift drivers, as well as the labour side of the brickwork that we've done.
