350 jobs go in butcher collapse
THE collapse of Crawshaw Butchers – including the closure of the Huddersfield shop – saw 354 people lose their jobs.
A total of 35 shops were shut immediately as the firm hit financial problems.
The Huddersfield shop on New Street in the town centre was one of those with half a dozen jobs going and customers who collected the firm’s saving stamps potentially out of pocket.
It was confirmed that Hunter Kelly and Charles King of EY’s Restructuring team have been appointed joint administrators and hope to sell on the 19 remaining shops and a distribution centre in Rotherham in a bid to save a further 261 jobs.
Hunter Kelly, joint administrator, said: “Crawshaw has not been immune to the well documented issues on the high street, which has resulted in a number of stores becoming loss making.
“Despite the new management team’s best efforts, it was not possible to raise additional investment to restructure the business by reducing the number of high street stores and expanding its successful factory shop format and in store SPAR butchery offering.
“As a result the group would have run out of cash due to the loss making high street stores and therefore administration was necessary.
“Crawshaw’s out of town factory store format has proved to be successful and we are hopeful that a purchaser can be found who can take forward management’s plan for these profitable stores.
“Unfortunately it was necessary to immediately close 35 stores in mainly high street locations that were no longer viable, which resulted in 354 redundancies.”
He said staff who have lost their jobs are being offered appropriate advice and support in making claims from the Redundancy Payments Office for outstanding wages, as well as redundancy and notice pay. He also confirmed they have been or will be paid their outstanding wages as normal.
Mr Kelly said: “It is with regret that 354 people have been made redundant. We hope to conclude a sale to preserve the remaining 261 jobs.”
Crawshaws posted on Facebook that it was still accepting saving stamps at the 19 remaining stores that have so far stayed open.
But anyone with stamps to redeem faces a considerable journey as the nearest stores that are still trading are in Barnsley or Leeds.
The closure of Huddersfield’s branch leaves another high profile empty shop at the struggling southern end of New Street, which is home to Primark, Wilko and a number of pound stores.