Bakers Travel has been wound up after failing to pay its bills.
It means that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Harrington Coaches Ltd also fails, while ultimate parent Hino Coaches Ltd, is on the point of being compulsorily dissolved. All are of the same Stoke-on-Trent address.
It brings to an end an unhappy recent history for the coach businesses on the site, which have run under various entities and ownerships since the former family-firm was sold by Phil Baker in 2013, when it ran 65 vehicles.
Bakers has four outstanding County Court Judgements, dating from October 2017 onwards, totalling £3,817.
One of its creditors, Rix Fuels, petitioned for a winding up order last month, which the company was unable to contest due to lack of cash.
The firm has seen a number of directors and owners in recent years – including Barbados-based Island Fortitude – and its last director, Debbie Windle, resigned in August 2017, leaving the business without a director or secretary.
It followed the collapse earlier in the year of a deal to sell Bakers to Italy-based Tundo [routeone/News/1 March 2017].
Hino Coaches’ shareholders are Chen Boyan and He Junlu, and this firm is currently under a Companies House dissolution order.
Harrington Coaches had its O-Licence revoked for lack of finance [routeone/Court Report/17 January], while Hino Coaches has surrendered its O-Licence in September 2017. A new O-Licence for Bakers Travel, which latterly operated under the Harrington licence, was refused in June 2017.
Former director Mrs Windle says: “With hindsight one could say that Bakers Travel had all its eggs in one basket. It was totally geared up to support one main contract with Reaseheath Agricultural College.
“Unfortunately this contract was lost in September 2017 and in truth from that point onwards the writing was really on the wall.
“I stayed on for a further month after the contract was lost to see if I could help in any way to salvage the company, but it became very clear that this was a losing battle.”
