A NORTH-EAST building contractor has gone into administration after almost 40 years of trading, with the loss of 49 jobs.

A buyer is being sought for P Whelan Ltd of Gosforth, Newcastle that was established in 1972 and traded under the name Whelan Construction.

The company was rocked by tragedy in 1990 when its then managing director Pat Whelan, and his wife Margaret died when their helicopter struck power cables, crashed and burst into flames shortly after taking off near Stanley, County Durham.

The company lived up to its claims for developing a family culture when it was revealed recently that six fathers were working alongside their children in the firm.

Among the major projects Whelan Construction worked on are the PETeC research base, at NetPark, in Sedgefield, County Durham, Cleveland Retail Park, the tv120 offices at Wynyard Park, student accommodation for Northumbria University, and the Clipper Windpower turbine blade factory on Newcastles Riverside.

However, the business which recorded a turnover of about £18m last year, has become the latest casualty of the downturn in the construction sector.

Last month, Robert Peto, international president of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), warned that the industry "will have to go through worse before things get better." Among the North-East construction firms that have gone into administration recently are Gateshead contractor Barton Civil Engineering, property repair group Rok and the John Laing Partnership.

Nick Reed, joint administrator and director at PwC in the North, explained the reasons why P Whelan had been forced to end almost four decades of trading.

"Like many businesses in the construction sector the business has experienced difficult trading conditions throughout 2010 and 2011 with margins coming under significant pressure." he said.

"There has been less work available in the market and the company has been unable to replace work with new contracts at appropriate margins. As a consequence the directors have reached the difficult decision to appoint administrators as the company has insufficient orders to continue to trade solvently.

"We have rapidly assessed the ability of the company to meet outstanding customer orders but unfortunately have concluded that the financial position of the company means that the business is not in a position to do so. Consequently a significant number of redundancies have been inevitable."