Stone crash
Page 6
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• Furious hauliers met last week at a packed creditors meeting following the surprise collapse of a West Country stone supplies firm with debts of £666,000, up to E400,000 of which is owed to hauliers.
Brian Carter, boss of the collapsed firm Stone Supplies (Stoke St Michael), says: "I can't say when the hauliers will get paid — it's now in the hands of the liquidators; they are the professionals." He denies that hauliers have attempted to contact him directly, although another company, Stone Supplies Holdings, is still trading in Bristol.
But liquidator Ernst & Young says: "Hauliers have been left holding the baby."
Creditors, including 150 hauliers, met on 2 November in Frome when joint liquidators Cork Gully and Ernst & Young revealed that the Stoke St Michael firm had crashed owing more than Elm — leaving a debt of E666,000 when a surplus of E467,000 had been distributed. The hauliers engaged by Stone Supplies (Stoke St Michael) were employed delivering stone to customers from quarry operators ARC and Foster Yeoman.
Liquidator Ernst & Young says: "Failures like this often have a domino effect. For many of these drivers Stone Supplies was their sole source