‘News was like a kick in the guts’

Like many unpaid sub-contractors hit hard by the Cardy collapse, Jim Amos suffered sleepless nights as he wrestled with the prospect of his business going under.

Cardy had crashed owing almost £200,000 to his firm, C A Drillers, and left him having to get a bank loan to keep afloat and safeguard the jobs of his 70 staff.

“I don’t know how the directors can sleep easy in their beds, because I haven’t,” Mr Amos said.

“It’s caused a huge amount of stress.”

Yet the relationship had started with such promise when his company was given a lucrative job on a large flats conversion for Cardy in Lewisham.

Dad-of three Mr Amos said: “It was a well-established firm who we had worked for before and their credit rating was OK so I didn’t have any worries.”

But half way through the job, alarm bells began ringing as the developer started to get behind with its payments.

Mr Amos, 35, who took over the family business at Blean from his father, said: “When the bill got to £100,000, I started to worry and heard that other contractors on the job weren’t being paid either.

“I told Cardy we would be pulling out unless we got paid and they then coughed up the money and promised to pay regularly.

“The payments fell behind again but they pleaded with me to stay on the job because it was nearing completion.

“We were persuaded to carry on until the bill got to around £190,000 and then were told Cardy had gone under. It was like a kick in the guts because I knew we would never get our money.”

Mr Amos says his own business was put at risk because of the huge unpaid bill.

“There were quite a few sleepless nights,” he admits. “But we still had a viable business which I couldn’t let fold. I also couldn’t see a lot of good people, who have families and mortgages, lose their jobs.

“It meant I had to go to the bank and get a business loan to keep going. Fortunately, we are getting through it and have secured some good work with big firms like Mace and even the Crossrail project.

“But having to get a loan has put us on the back foot because it affects your credit rating.”

Mr Amos believes there needs to be a full investigation into the way the company was being run.

He said: “I don’t know where it went wrong but there are a lot of questions that need answering.

“Unfortunately, sub-contractors rarely get paid in these circumstances, so I’m not hopeful we will ever get a penny of what we are owed.”

C A Drillers boss Jim Amos