In this article, which is part of a series on the 12 stories in the Harrogate district that shaped 2023, we look at some of the larger companies that ran into difficulties over the year.

What could loosely be termed “economic headwinds” have caused trouble for thousands of companies around the UK in recent years, and in 2023 the storm hit several large local employers. 

Some were rescued, but others sank without trace. Here, we take another look at some of the bigger companies that hit the rocks over the last 12 months. 

Amvoc

Back in March, as many as 230 people lost their jobs after Harrogate telemarketing company Amvoc crashed into administration.  

Amvoc’s clients included some big names, such as BP, Barclays and Virgin Media, as well as the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. 

But administrator Gareth Lewis, of Lewis Business Recovery and Insolvency, said in his report that the company had entered into a company voluntary arrangement in 2017 due to “cash flow difficulties” because of the loss of a major customer and “significant bad debt”. 

Amvoc’s former head office on Cardale Park in Harrogate.

Amvoc paid off the bad debt, but only just in time for the start of the covid pandemic. The company, which had unusually high staff turnover – 20 to 30 employees left and started each month – couldn’t cope with lockdown, and even after restrictions were eased, its offices were closed by Public Health England in August 2020 after 50 staff contracted coronavirus. 

Meanwhile, many of Amvoc’s customers held back on projects due to uncertainty caused by the pandemic, leading to an unsustainable trading position. 

Farmison

In April, high-end butcher Farmison went into administration, threatening the jobs of its 100 or so employees. This time, though, the story had a happier outcome.  

The Ripon-based firm, which was founded by John Pallagi and Lee Simmons in 2011, had an impressive client list that included Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges and Michelin starred restaurants. 

Major cashflow problems saw it fall into administration with debts of £7 million, but it was quickly bought out of administration by a consortium led by Andy Clark, former chief executive of Asda, for an undisclosed sum. 

Farmison is now back in business, with a leaner staff of 60 under former Marks & Spencer managing director Andy Adcock as chief executive. It relaunched its Cut by Farmison butcher’s shop at its Ripon headquarters earlier this month, plans to open more shops in a bid to diversify, and aims to increase annual turnover to £20 million. 

Black Sheep Brewery

Challenging economic conditions were also behind the difficulties that corralled Black Sheep Brewery into administration in May. 

The Masham company headed off what it called a “local employment catastrophe” by selling out to London investment firm the Breal Group for £5 million, saving about 50 jobs, including that of chief executive Charlene Lyons. 

Black Sheep Brewery’s CEO, Charlene Lyons.

Ms Lyons said that Black Sheep was not the brewing industry’s first casualty and warned it would not be the last. Speaking in June, she said: 

“In the last 12 months, 45 breweries entered insolvency in the UK, a three-fold increase on the previous year, as the cost-of-living crisis has squeezed household disposable income. 

“This has had an extreme and adverse effect on all brewers’ sales, at a time when their own costs and inflation are high. Black Sheep has not been immune to these factors, leading it to the administration process. It is highly likely that many more will follow in the coming months.” 

Ilke Homes

Around 1,100 people lost their jobs when Ilke Homes collapsed into administration in June, owing nearly £400 million to more than 300 creditors. 

The company, which manufactured modular housing in a huge factory at Flaxby, near Knaresborough, had been toasted as a stand-out success story on the region’s business landscape. 

Established in 2017, it built up a client base that included major institutional investors, housing associations, developers and local councils.  

In 2021, Ilke Homes raised £60 million in investment, and a year later, it raised a record-breaking £100 million from new and existing shareholders, following successive years of triple-digit growth. 

But despite a healthy-looking order book, it eventually ran into financial difficulties it attributed to “volatile macro-economic conditions and issues with the planning system”.   

The company said it needed additional funding to build its £1 billion pipeline of 4,200 new homes, but that wasn’t forthcoming, and so it was forced to fold. 

Most creditors saw little or nothing of their investment, including government-owned Homes England, which is believed to have received just 0.01% of the £68 million it was owed. 

The demise of one of the area’s largest employers was naturally not without drama. More than 600 employees took legal action over the way the redundancy process was managed, hoping for compensation of up to eight weeks’ pay. 

And in August – just two days after the firm’s assets had been auctioned by administrators – thieves stole “a large amount of equipment” from its factory, just off junction 47 of the A1(M). Bizarrely, they even refused to leave the site and continued to load up vehicles, even after the police arrived on site. Investigations are believed to be ongoing.

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Black Sheep Brewery has announced a “small number” of redundancies at its head offices in Masham.

In a statement, the brewery also said three of its pubs in Leeds and York would close with immediate effect.

A spokesperson for Black Sheep said the redundancies would be made in its retail arm.

Meanwhile, The Tap & Kitchen and Mr. Foleys in Leeds, along with The Last Drop Inn in York, will shut following an “extensive review” of the brewery.

A spokesperson said:

“Having recently conducted an extensive review of our business, we have explored every angle to try to keep these locations trading profitably, but without success.

“Unfortunately, the only avenue left for us was the closure of these premises. It is always the last resort for us to make redundancies, and we are saddened to see such dedicated colleagues leaving us, at this time.”

Read more:

• London investment firm buys Masham’s Black Sheep Brewery
• Suppliers owed £3m after Black Sheep Brewery sale
• Sale of Black Sheep Brewery prevented ‘local employment catastrophe’, says CEO

Breal Capital bought the brewery for £5 million on May 26 as part of a pre-package administration deal.

Teneo Financial Advisory, which was appointed as administrators of Black Sheep, revealed sales fell from a high of £19 million in 2019 to £14 million last year, which resulted in a £1.6 million loss.

It added the company’s performance “suffered during the covid pandemic and trading challenges continued as a result of the current economic environment”.

The move also left creditors, including HMRC and suppliers, owed nearly £3 million.

Following the sale, Charlene Lyons, who was kept on as chief executive of Black Sheep, warned that other breweries faced administration amid the current economic climate.

An IT firm has laid off 16 staff in Harrogate.

Techbuyer, which refurbishes IT equipment, said in a statement today the job losses were part of a restructuring.

The company, which was founded by Kevin Towers in Harrogate in 2005, is based on Hornbeam Park and operates sites in the United States, Germany, France, Australia and New Zealand.

Chief executive Mr Towers said:

“These decisions have been really hard to make, they have not been taken lightly and have come in the face of market pressures since January. Many other IT businesses, large and small, UK based and global, have had to restructure since then.

“Myself and the management team have explored every angle to avoid this unfortunate situation, but have been left with no alternative but to restructure, including these staff reductions, in order to protect the business moving forwards.”

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The Stray Ferret was alerted to the news by a whistleblower, who criticised the way the company handled the news last week.

Mr Towers said the company had focused heavily on rewarding staff over 18 years, adding:

“As we’ve grown, we have shared our success with very generous companywide bonuses, cost of living crisis bonuses, consistent pay increases, community and charitable donations and more. Unfortunately, during this challenging time, we have had to make some very difficult choices as well.

“I thank everyone for all their hard work at Techbuyer, it is appreciated.  To stress the point, decisions like this would not be taken unless absolutely necessary and I wish all those affected all the best for the future.”

Techbuyer, which employs 203 of its 297 global workforce in Harrogate, works with partners, including manufacturers such as HPE, Dell and Lenovo, to promote the environmental, cost and performance benefits of refurbished enterprise IT hardware.

According to its website, it configures over 5,000 servers every year and erases data from more than 12,000 hard drives every month in the UK.

Intense negotiations are taking place over the bank holiday weekend to save one of Ripon’s largest employers .

Premium meat retailer Farmison & Co ceased trading on Thursday and entered administration. Most of the 92 staff were made redundant.

All items on the company’s website are currently listed as ‘out of stock’.

Farmison co-founder John Pallagi told the Stray Ferret he was talking to a consortium led by two Yorkshire businessmen about a management buyout.

It comes after buyout talks with another online butcher, Tom Hixson of Smithfield, fell through.

Mr Pallagi said:

“I hope to have some news by the end of the long weekend.

“Farmison isn’t trading at the moment but I haven’t given up hope. We are an amazing business and this is a great opportunity.

“We have half a million people on our database and an established UK brand that has won many awards. There’s every reason to keep this company alive.”

Mr Pallagi said last night he had been engaged in 48 hours of exhausting talks with the potential new owners after administrators FRP took control of the company on Maundy Thursday.

He said the firm had serviced all orders that had been placed and a “small working team” remained on site to deal with any unresolved issues.

Read more:

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Last year Mr Pallagi sold Farmison, whose customers include Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, to Scottish private investors Inverleith LLP.

He remained as chief executive and a new three-year business plan was agreed. But when the plan faltered he approached Ripon and Skipton Conservative MP Julian Smith and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for help.

Mr Pallagi said:

“I’m a fighter. I’ve been in this business for 21 years and I’m confident we can turn around this wrong turn that we’ve taken.”

Mr Pallagi started Farmison to work with local farmers and encourage people to ‘eat better meat’.

Despite sales doubling to £12m in 2021, the company then made a loss of £2.6m.

As many as 450 people have lost their jobs after Harrogate telemarketing company Amvoc crashed into administration, leaving employees in shock today. 

Staff received an email at 10pm last night from chief executive Damian Brockway informing them all the company’s offices, in Harrogate, Leeds and Manchester, would close with immediate effect, citing “covid debts” as the cause. 

The email, seen by the Stray Ferret, said: 

“We have appointed administrators with immediate effect who will now be responsible for paying wages this week and all outstanding bonuses.

“I am gutted. Words fail me.

“Unfortunately our covid debts were too high and repayments not high enough. We have been issued with immediate request to pay all outstanding within seven days which is impossible.

“I cannot tell you how upset this makes me.”

The speed of the company’s demise surprised many – it was still advertising for new staff as recently as last week – and staff expressed their shock in social media posts. One said:

“I, as many others will be during this time, am now frantically looking for work. With huge overheads, a small child to support and a mortgage to pay, I am very concerned about the coming weeks.”

Mr Brockway set up Amvoc, the trading name of A Marketing Vocation Ltd, from a small office in Dacre in 2010. It sold telemarketing services, initially in the legal sector, and grew rapidly, moving first to Pateley Bridge and then to large offices at New York Mills near Summerbridge. 

It opened a new head office on Cardale Park in Harrogate in 2015, a facility in Leeds in 2018 and an office in Manchester in 2022.  It also had plans to expand to London.

Amvoc’s clients have included BP, Barclays, Virgin Media, Leeds Beckett University, and both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. 

The company has been approached for comment. 

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North Yorkshire County Council leader Carl Les has refused to rule out future staff redundancies after the new council is created in April.

In just over a month, the county’s seven district councils and North Yorkshire County Council will be replaced by a new unitary authority called North Yorkshire Council to run services across the county, which will also be led by the Conservative Cllr Les.

A key argument for local government reorganisation was that it would save the taxpayer money but some district councils have faced criticism from the Taxpayers’ Alliance and union officials for offering outgoing chief executives six-figure redundancy packages.

Hambleton District Council and Selby District Council agreed packages worth £225,000 and £210,000 for its outgoing chief executives, Justin Ives and Janet Waggott, respectively.

At a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council on Wednesday in Northallerton, Cllr Andy Brown, Green Party member for the Aire Valley division, asked Cllr Les if he could offer assurances that there would not be similar redundancy payments as a result of the move to the new authority.

In response, Cllr Les said:

“I can’t give an assurance that there won’t be further redundancies for posts with the new council because the council will always be looking for efficiencies.”

He added:

“I can assure that those redundancy processes will be fair both to employee and taxpayer.”

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The vast majority of staff working for the district councils and North Yorkshire County Council will transfer over to the North Yorkshire Council under TUPE terms on April 1.

David Houlgate, Harrogate branch secretary at local government union Unison, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service after today’s meeting that Unison does not expect there to be compulsory redundancies with the new council but there may be voluntary ones.

He added:

“We’d look at voluntary redundancies which may in some instances be mutually beneficial for our members and taxpayers but in reality the staffing issue in local government is around recruitment not over-staffing.”

A total of 76 staff at Harrogate’s St George Hotel face uncertain futures amid plans to close the building for refurbishment.

The Inn Collection Group, which bought the historic hotel a year ago, informed staff last week they were at risk of redundancy on January 30.

It plans to carry out a multi-million pound refurbishment that will transform the interior and increase the number of bedrooms from 90 to 96.

A spokesman for the Inn Collection Group, which also owns the Dower House in Knaresborough and Ripon Spa Hotel, said today:

“We currently have 76 colleagues at risk of redundancy as a result of a proposed closure on January 30, however we have started a consultation process to discuss this, to support our colleagues and seek ways in which to mitigate the need for redundancy.”

The spokesman said the refurbishment would include remedial work to some of the building’s systems and “bring it into the look and feel of The Inn Collection Group”, adding:

“The main focus on refurbishment though is centred around the transformation of the ground floor space, which will be brought into our model of hospitality.

“We are a pub with rooms operator rather than a hotel operator and the refurbishment will evolve the offering at Hotel St George into a space where they are made to feel welcome and are encouraged to join us for coffees, drinks and meals.

“There will also be significant improvements carried out to areas that support this such as the kitchens, allowing us to develop what we offer to our guests and residents of Harrogate and beyond.”

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The spokesman said the refurbishment was anticipated to take 16 weeks and was “intended to begin shortly following a consultation period with our teams at the site who will be impacted whilst the refurbishment takes place”.

Asked what will happen to customers who have booked accommodation or weddings, he said:

“Our teams are currently contacting these customers directly to discuss their bookings.  These discussions will centre around if they wish to retain their stay or event with us or if they wish to find an alternative venue, which we will work with them to accommodate.”

Dower House and Ripon Spa Hotel set for summer re-openings

The Inn Collection Group has properties across northern England, including Dower House and Ripon Spa Hotel, which are both closed for refurbishment.

The Dower House

Work at Dower House began in September last year. The spokesman said:

“Once complete, the Dower House will have grown from a 38-room establishment to a 57-room venue and as with Hotel St George will have enjoyed a significant renovation of its ground floor spaces to provide a space to be enjoyed by guests both staying with us and those visiting from the local area.

“The fabric of the building is requiring a great deal of care and attention as part of the refurbishment, and we are hopeful that works will be complete later this summer.”

The company has started advertising for a general manager at Ripon Spa Hotel but it is not expected to reopen for several months. The building is still surrounded by scaffolding.

Ripon Spa Hotel

The spokesman said:

“Works have been underway at Ripon Spa since summer last year and again have seen us undertake an extensive programme to maintain and enhance the fabric of the building.

“As at the Dower House, there will be an increase in the number of bedrooms for guest. Up from 43 to 59.

“We are again hopeful of launching the newly renovated venue later this summer.”

Harrogate Borough Council has refused to say whether any jobs are at risk of redundancy as part of an ongoing staffing review at Harrogate Convention Centre.

The review began last year and is expected to conclude in April.

It is being headed by centre director Paula Lorimer who has a core team of 21 staff including managers, accounts and admin staff and events planners.

The council, which owns the venue, said in a statement that changes to the staffing structure are being considered because the reopening of the centre after covid restrictions had “highlighted a need” to review how events are delivered.

However, the council refused to say if any jobs were at risk of redundancy.

A council spokesperson said: 

“Following on from successfully redeploying two-thirds of the convention centre’s employees to assist in delivering our critical frontline services, the return to providing event operations in a post-pandemic industry has highlighted a need to review how these are delivered.

“This review is ongoing and is anticipated to be concluded in the spring.

“At this stage, there is nothing further to add.”

The staffing review is due to be discussed at a meeting of the council’s human resources committee on February 10.

Read more:

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• Harrogate Convention Centre boss warns big events ‘at risk’ unless £47m refurbishment is accelerated
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The committee previously discussed the changes behind closed doors in December, and it is likely this will happen again at next week’s meeting.

Ms Lorimer – who is one of the council’s top earners with a £104,502 salary – said in a report that the convention centre did not earn any income from events in 2021/22.

She said this was because of covid cancellations and the venue’s use as an NHS Nightingale hospital, although she added events have since made a positive return.

Ms Lorimer said: 

“Following venue reinstatement and the reopening of the events industry we have welcomed back a significant number of existing and new clients, contributing to the prosperity of the district.

“Our sales strategy continues to focus on attracting larger association conferences.

“There have been a number of events attracted to the convention centre as a result of both the sales strategy and the national publicity regarding the use of the venue as a NHS Nightingale.”

£47m refurbishment in pipeline

The staffing review comes after the council created a new destination management organisation in 2020 when Gemma Rio was appointed as its head to promote the Harrogate district as “exceptional place to visit, meet and invest”.

It also comes as the council is pushing ahead with plans for a major redevelopment of the convention centre.

This week the council’s cabinet backed the spending of £2.8 million in cash reserves to speed up the first phase of the works at the venue’s studio two.

Overall, the whole project could cost up to £47 million over three phases if approved and involve three exhibition halls being demolished to make way for a new 5,000 sq m hall and a refurbished auditorium.

A decision on the plans is expected from councillors in summer.

The M&Co shop in Ripon has been saved from store closure as the company goes through a major financial restructure.

M&Co appointed administrators in April after closing during the coronavirus lockdown. A total of 47 stores have been closed.

The company has described covid as its biggest challenge “in over 60 years”.

For over 40 years, the store has been a constant tenant on Ripon’s high street.

M&Co chief executive Andy McGeoch said:

“It quickly became clear that best way to save most jobs and most stores was to enter administration, with a new company acquiring the assets of the old business. I am really pleased that we have been able to maintain a presence in over 200 communities.

“Local economies rely to a huge degree on their town centres and we have seen too many High Streets hollowed out by successive shop closures. More and more people are beginning to realise that, if they don’t support their town centres, everyone’s quality of living really takes a hit, so we are proud to be playing a part in the drive to shop locally.”

Read more:

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Alongside shop closures, the company has announced 380 job redundancies from a total workforce of over 2,600.