Staff and firms left 'desperate' by Portland Spa crisis

The job cuts came days after the four-star Portland Spa Hotel was placed into administration on Friday.

Trained beauty therapist Jamie Asquith, 19, was told on Monday not to come into work the next day.

She joins father of two Justin Yule, 25, who was a waiter at the hotel pulled out of the restaurant on Monday and told it was his last shift.

They both say they feel ‘stabbed in the back’ because of assurances made to them last weekend by managers that they would keep their jobs before one fifth of the workforce was let go.

Jamie, of Thornlow Close, Wyke Regis, said: “I’m just really shocked and gutted because I have made good relationships with my clients and I really loved my job.

“We were really busy in the Spa and I just can’t see how they are going to run with less staff – it was really only the hotel that was quiet.

“I just think it’s really bad that I was assured I would keep my job only days earlier.”

She added: “Right now I am just desperate for any job in the town – I love doing beauty therapy but right now there is nothing around.”

The news was particularly bad timing for Justin, of Chickerell, who has just proposed to his fiancée Sam and was in the process of planning a wedding.

He said: “The whole thing from beginning to end must not have even lasted five minutes.

“I was pulled out of the restaurant to be told by someone I didn’t know that I was to leave with immediate effect and that I should collect my possessions.

“I won’t get paid any notice period and I have just paid out most of my money on an engagement ring.

“I just feel we have been treated unfairly really – we shouldn’t have been told our jobs were safe and the whole thing could have been handled a lot better and on the day it happened my general manager couldn’t even be found.

“Other employees who were laid off were in tears and one worker was telephoned during her holiday in Spain to be told.”

Justin has worked at the Orchid Restaurant since November and said the last four weeks were ‘eerie’ because all the staff felt that something was going to happen.

The accounting firm KPMG was appointed administrator for Portland Spa Ltd and Southwell Estates Ltd on Friday.

Southwell Business Park itself has not been placed into administration.

No one from Portland Spa was available for comment.

If you have lost your job or your business has been affected by the Portland Spa Hotel going into administration contact Miriam Phillips at the Dorset Echo on 01305 830985.

P & J BUTCHERS

A BUTCHER fears he will be left £3,000 out of pocket after Portland Spa went into administration.

Larry Thorne, who owns P & J Butchers in South Street, Dorchester, supplied meat to the Spa’s restaurant until last December when the Spa cancelled the contract.

Mr Thorne was left fuming after reading in the Dorset Echo that the Portland business is now set to go into administration.

Mr Thorne said: “I’ve basically been told for the last four months to be patient.

“I was told by the Spa’s directors that they would soon be getting a cash injection and a request not to launch any court action.

“I resisted doing that but now I don’t think I have a cat in hell’s chance of getting my money back.”

PRS PLUMBING

A PLUMBER said he felt devastated when he realised that months of work worth £20,000 would not be paid.

Richard Phelps carried out all the gas and plumbing work for the hotel complex under the firm PRS Plumbing and Heating.

He said: “We were paid for some of the work and when the cheques started to bounce at Christmas I was devastated.

“I started work there in March and worked every day and at one stage we had seven guys working for us but we made sure they were all paid. It’s been stressful ever since and really I feel it is money that is being taken away from my three daughters.”

He added that he was frustrated local businesses were suffering.

BARRETT ELECTRICAL

THE owner of an electrical company has described his unpaid bills of more than £100,000 as ‘horrendous’.

Owner of Barrett Electrical Services Ltd, Trevor Barrett, said: “We carried out all of the rewiring for the hotel in November and December and we’ve been chasing the bills ever since.

“It’s had a significant impact on my business with all my staff having to take a wage cut.

“It’s had a huge effect and it’s just sickening when I think about it – first of all there were the excuses and carrot dangling and then there was just nothing. “ Mr Barrett has decided to relocate his family business from Southwell Business Park to Easton because he says it has become ‘untenable’ to stay where he was.”

NISA

A NEWSAGENT on Portland said ‘it is a complete joke’ that he has never been paid for the £750 of papers supplied to the hotel.

Grant Purnell, owner of Nisa newsagents on Weston Road, said: “I kept thinking it would be alright but then after three or four months I hadn’t had a bean.

“It’s a complete joke, and even when I went up there to see one of the directors to ask for the money they just didn’t want to know.

“Now I look back – it doesn’t surprise me what they have done to people and now we are seeing the backlash from the local people that have lost out.”

PRINT TEAM

SPIRALLING printing costs of £4,500 going unpaid was enough for a Portland printing firm to stop supplying Portland Spa Hotel.

Print Team on Tradecroft Industrial Estate has supplied the hotel, spa and gym with leaflets and posters since October and was not alerted of the unpaid bills until January.

Co-owner of the family-run business Chris Smith said by then it ‘was already too late’.

“We heard a lot of waffle from them about the fact that the bank had let them down,” he said.

The company has already sought legal action to retrieve the money from the hotel.

TRAVIS PERKINS

THE future is now uncertain for the Travis Perkins store at Southwell Business Park after it was left with bills of £70,000 unpaid.

Shop supervisor Tim Diment said: “It’s really put us on rocky ground in terms of staying open.

“They are just out of order really because they knew they were in financial difficulty yet they just kept ordering and now they’ve put our three jobs at risk.

“The first bill went unpaid in October and we let it ride but then nothing else got paid from then on.”

The company supplied materials and building supplies for the hotel.

BOISSE WINDOWS

WINDOW fitter Mike Boisse said it has been sad to watch a company that tried to support local businesses go wrong.

Boisse Windows Ltd has been left with an unpaid bill of £8,500.

Mr Boisse said he realised now that all the work contracted was on the back of money that ‘just wasn’t there’. He said: “They were ever so nice there and at first we were paid for the 200 windows we fitted but all the extras we did went unpaid.”

He added that he was upset for the directors but that the money clearly wasn’t there.

MABEY & SONS

A FAMILY-run tarmac company is chasing bills of more than £10,000 for the work they carried out.

Co-owner Wendy Mabey, of Mabey and Sons, based near Winfrith, said: “We were just left in the dark and never realised we weren’t getting the money that was owed to us. We had to have big machinery and my husband and sons were there for ages. We just hope that we are going to get some of the money back.”