Debts force firm to fold

A Telford company, which was owed money by collapsed county firm Wrekin Construction, has folded with the loss of 30 jobs.

Eyre Electrical Shropshire Ltd, based at Hadley Park, has closed down after operating in the town for 20 years. Both of the company's two operations, Eyre Electrical and Castle Security Systems, announced they have ceased trading.

The news came on a grim day for Britain's beleaguered economy with figures showing huge public borrowing and plummeting mortgage lending last month.

The Telford company was owed more than £180,000 by the former Shifnal-based Wrekin Construction when it went into administration in March last year.

Today insolvency expert Kevin Lucas, who is working with Eyre Electrical Shropshire, said the firm was also owed £100,000 from a Birmingham company.

Mr Lucas, from Barringtons Chartered Accountants in Newcastle-under-Lyme, said: "We are in the process of putting it into liquidation.

"We are still collating the information and I hope today to have all the creditors' details and then we will be contacting them about forthcoming meetings."

Staff at the Hadley Park headquarters were told by bosses they no longer had jobs on Friday.

Mr Lucas added: "They suffered a bad debt two years ago from a construction company in Birmingham where they lost about £100,000 and then last year they lost about £180,000 from Wrekin Construction so a quarter-of-a-million pounds lost had a dramatic effect on them.

"There were a number of events that were beyond the control of directors. There's just no more money available, they could not get more funding from the bank and they had to take the decision to close."

Accounts filed by Eyre Electrical at Companies House, in March 2009, showed the company was awaiting payments of about £685,000, but also owed about £613,00.

Paul Turner, managing director of Eyre Electrical, was unavailable for comment today.

Earlier today it was revealed net borrowing was £4.3 billion in January a month that usually sees a seasonal surplus thanks to income and corporate tax payments.

By Jason Lavan