Pictured above: John Kelly

Corporate recovery specialists Begbies Traynor have been appointed over three Northamptonshire-based building and construction companies.

Partners John Kelly, from the Birmingham office, and Mary Currie-Smith, from Cambridge, have been named joint administrators at Deejak Builders (Rushden) Ltd, Deejak Construction Ltd, and joinery arm Rushden Builders Merchants.

The companies are being closed and 80 workers have lost their jobs.

Deejak, which had been trading for nearly 40 years, worked across a diverse range of sectors including industrial and commercial, retail, housing, education, hospitals, sheltered accommodation and leisure.

It typically took on projects within a 75 mile radius of its Rushden headquarters, ranging in value from £50,000 to £8 million.

Deejak Properties (Rushden) Ltd, which purchases land and carries out private commercial and residential development, is unaffected and continues to trade.

Mr Kelly said Deejak had struggled because of "a combination of lack of work and difficulty getting paid", a common problem within the construction industry.

He said it was a sad day for the employees as well as 69-year-old chairman Derek Titmuss who continued to run the business he had founded in 1972.

"He survived several recessions but not the sector's current troubles, I'm afraid," said Mr Kelly.

"The difference this time is that the depressed state of the sector has gone on longer and deeper than anything I can remember.

"Deejak had an excellent reputation."

It had not been possible to trade the business on with a view to selling it as a going concern, he added.

Just a handful of employees have been retained to help with the finalisation of accounts.

The administrators are looking to assign on-going contracts to others so they can be completed.

For more information about Begbies Traynor, please visit their website here: www.begbies-traynorgroup.com