We're Backing Business campaign: Partnership keeps firm above water

Eleven per cent of East Lancashire firms fall within this sector and the level of risk highlights the crucial role the Lancashire Telegraph’s We’re Backing Business campaign is playing.

The Telegraph has teamed up with Business Link to get firms the expert advice they need to ride out the recession.

And the boss of a Longridge construction supplies company said Business Link support had been vital as he saved the business from financial disaster.

Rob McGuinness, a Business Link Northwest growth companies broker, who works with businesses in the construction sector in East Lancashire, said: “The current state of the construction sector is mixed.

"One of the issues affecting the sector as a whole is the lack of supply of quality tenders and the uncertainty that follows as projects are put on hold.

"High levels of competition for the business that is out there means that margins are being squeezed, leading to greater pressures on cash, this is being compounded by delayed payments from main contractors and so it goes on down the whole supply chain.”

It is often the case that companies are unaware of the support available to them and that’s what We’re Backing Business is trying highlight. Companies do not have to suffer in silence and can turn for help in these tough times.”

For Norman Tenray, the decision to approach Business Link was made soon after he saved 40 jobs when he took over building supplies firm Obas, Longridge, in January last year.

He said: “I spent four months learning the business from the ground up. I wanted to restore the confidence of our staff and of the companies we supply, so we needed to go back to basics.

“When we met with Business Link Northwest, I realised how much easier it would have been to have contacted them when I first acquired the business.”

So successful was the partnership that Obas was nominated for the Deal of the Year award at the 2008 Lancashire Telegraph Business Awards.