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Firm's new owners face cash demands
Page 6
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Desperate subcontractors are asking questions of the new owners of a company that has left them out of pocket. Chris Tindall reports.
SUBCONTRACTORS WHO claim a Scottish haulage firm owes them thousands of pounds in unpaid invoices have expressed anger and disbelief that it has been sold to another company that had no idea of its debts.
It now looks likely there could be as many as 40 contractors in a similar position after carrying out work for CRS 24:7. To add to its woes the company faces a public inquiry in Edinburgh next week to consider disciplinary action.
CRS was bought by Lanes-based Fastserv on 26 May.
Stranraer-based Ryan Bell says he will be forced out of business just five months after beginning trading if Fastserv does not pay the 1:16000 he says he is owed by CRS. Bell reports that CRS was his first customer; he subcontracted for it in April, May and June. But now the money he is still owed for this period threatens to put him out of business.
-To be perfectly honest with you. I've missed a lorry payment," he says."If I don't get the .£16,000,it will finish me. I borrowed the money to keep going, but I have to pay them back now. They're putting pressure on me."
Another subcontractor, Colin Andrews of Andrews Transport, says he is owed up to £18,000 for work stretching back as far as December 2005. Andrews says he has confronted the Fastserv directors and demanded his money but was told Fastserv was unable to give him his money immediately and was unaware of the scale of CRS's debts when they bought it A letter to customers and suppliers written by CRS's previous owner, Gary Keenan, says Barry Stanley and Andrew Croll have taken ownership of CRS 24:7 and he would now be its sales director.
It isnot clear if Keenan still works for the company, though he is listed as one of the directors called to appear before the Scottish Traffic Commissioner on18 August.
(roll and Stanley were unavailable for comment as CM although went to press, although we were invited to Fastserv's base in Heywood, Lanes by its operations director Simon Parsons to receive a briefing on the situation.
christopher.tindall@rbi.co.uk