Up to 300 jobs are to be created at the site of collapsed Shifnal firm Wrekin Construction, which has been sold to a civil engineering company, it was revealed today.

Bosses at JN Bentley Ltd said they had exchanged contracts for the Lamledge Lane site and had already taken on a handful of redundant staff from the failed company.

The sale is expected to be completed by the middle of next month

The sale of the site to the Yorkshire-based building and civil engineering contractors will create up to 300 jobs over the next 18 months but could be increased to 500 over the next five years, bosses said today.

The sale comes after Wrekin Construction went into administration in March. Administrators Ernst & Young have said it could not be saved as a going concern.

Kate Crawford, spokeswoman for JN Bentley Ltd said: “We’re delighted to have exchanged contracts for the site at Shifnal, which meets our needs as we expand our business into the Shropshire area and it will become our regional contracting base when we complete the purchase on June 12.

“We’ll be creating around 250 to 300 new jobs within the next 12 to 18 months and through further growth plans, we have ambitions of seeing this total rise to around 500 new jobs across a range of disciplines within five years.”

She said three members of staff who were made redundant when Wrekin Construction collapsed are now employed by their firm, with more expected to join in June.

She said the recruitment process had only just started and it was not possible to say how many former employees they would be taking on at this stage.

The company said workers who were made redundant would not autom- atically be recruited and have to go through the normal interview process.

Nobody from administrators Ernst & Young was available to comment on the sale today.

Documents released since the collapse of the firm showed it owed £21 million to businesses across the UK.

By Kirsty Smallman