Building firm ceases trading with loss of 22 jobs
company had been ‘severely affected by the economic downturn with dramatic fall in sales’
Published:
AN INVERNESS building firm is to cease trading with the loss of 22 jobs, making it the latest casualty of the recession in the Highlands.
Ewen Gillies Builders, of 21 Seafield Road, in the Longman Industrial Estate, has applied to the Court of Session in Edinburgh to be placed into administration.
It is expected that administrators will be appointed next week, subject to court approval, and the business will be officially closed.
All 22 employees have been made redundant.
Tenon Recovery, which is expected to handle the administration, said the company – which developed and built a range of homes across the Highlands – had been “severely affected by the economic downturn and collapse in the housing market, resulting in a dramatic fall in sales and severe cash-flow problems”.
It said the firm’s directors had decided the business was not sustainable and that they had made a voluntary request to the Court of Session for Tenon Recovery to be appointed administrator.
Subject to the appointment being confirmed, joint administrator Iain Fraser, a director with Tenon Recovery in Inverness and Aberdeen, will market the assets of the business, including three development sites, work in progress, and equipment.
The statement said employees affected by the administration “will be given every assistance with an application to the Redundancy Payments Office for any outstanding wages, holiday pay and pension entitlements that may be due to them”. The three development sites were at Perrins Road, Alness, a part-completed, two-bedroom house in Conon High Street and a small development site in Lochalsh Road, Inverness.
Following the appointment of administrators, businesses interested in the assets of the company should contact Tenon Recovery in Inverness on 01463 732510.
