A CUMBRIAN-based road surfacing business with offices in Sedgefield has been taken over by multi-national building materials group Hanson.

Family-owned business Cumbrian Industrials Limited was bought by Hanson for an undisclosed sum.

The company, which employs 196 people at offices in Sedgefield and Penrith and has a turnover of £40m, uses about 220,000 tonnes of asphalt a year, much of it supplied by Hanson.

Cumbrian said Ken and Jennifer Pallister, who founded the business in 1971, would be leaving the company, but the other directors would remain.

Hanson, which has operations throughout the world, said the acquisition of Cumbrian would run alongside its existing infrastructure and road surfacing business, Hanson Construction Projects. It said there were no plans for job cuts.

The group, which produces aggregates and ready-mixed concrete, operates three quarries, four concrete plants and one concrete product factory in the region, and has local offices in Swinburne and Washington. The company employs 150 people in the North-East.

Hanson is the largest producer of aggregates - crushed rock, sand and gravel - in the world.