A LEADING North-East construction firm has weathered the recession by seeking work outside the region.

The County Durham-based Esh Group now has offices in Kendal and Leeds and has seen out-of-region work increase from £10m in 2007 to more than £30m today.

The company’s workforce is 950 compared with 1,300 in 2008/09.

But chief executive, Brian Manning, says the position would be worse if the company was relying solely on depressed market in the North-East where social housing work and commercial developments have slowed considerably.

Nationally, construction shrank 2.5 per cent in the last quarter, following a three per cent contraction in the previous three months.

Mr Manning says:“In construction we are still in recession. 

“The reason we are able to keep so stable is we are now doing 25 to 30 per cent of our work outside the North-East. 

“I think the region has suffered more than most. If we hadn’t expanded our geographical spread we would have been down 20 per cent and we would have had more redundancies.

Mr Manning says there is a light at the end of the tunnel but believes there may be a wait.

“I don’t think that the headline today is right, that we are back in growth again, the double-dip recession is over, away we go.

“In construction it may well be 2014 before we come out of recession. “