Bradwell Communications Limited was wound-up in the public interest on 15 February 2019 at the High Court (Manchester). The Official Receiver has been appointed liquidator of the company.

In setting out the basis for the petitions to wind-up the company, the court heard that Bradwell Communications was incorporated in October 2015 and supplied IT equipment.

The company was investigated as a result of connections identified between Bradwell Communications and two associated companies, Direct United (Services) Ltd and Fibre Tex Ltd that were investigated in an earlier case.

Direct United (Services) and Fibre Tex were closed down by the courts in April 2018 after they were found to have operated with a lack of transparency and had traded in an improper manner that resulted in both companies incurring significant liabilities.

Following more recent enquiries, investigators discovered that Bradwell Communications had continued the trade and operations of Direct United (Services) Ltd and Fibre Tex Ltd despite having been wound-up by the courts.

Enquiries into Bradwell Communications were hampered because the company and those that ran it lacked transparency and failed to produce books and records, which meant that investigators were unable to establish who was in control of the company or from where it was trading.

Investigators were also unable to substantiate the company’s filed accounts, which purported to show significant assets and retained profits, or verify transactions passing through the company’s bank accounts with a value of circa £270,000.

David Hope, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service, said:

Bradwell Communications and those individuals in control of it paid scant regard to their obligations and have sought to abuse the privileges that limited liability offers.

This should serve as strong warning that we will act swiftly to protect the public and business community by investigating and shutting down companies that abuse the corporate regime.

All public enquiries concerning the affairs of the company should be made to: The Official Receiver, Public Interest Unit, 2 Floor, 3 Piccadilly Place, London Road, Manchester, M1 3BN or email: piu.north@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk

Bradwell Communications Ltd – company registration number 09811443 – was incorporated on 6 October 2015. The company’s registered office is at 56 Halford Street, 2nd Floor, Leicester LE1 1TQ.

The petition was presented under s124A of the Insolvency Act 1986 on 21 December 2018. The order was made by Deputy District Judge Carter.

Company Investigations, part of the Insolvency Service, uses powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Further information about live company investigations is available here.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available here.

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

Court winds-up Leicester-based IT supplier after it continued the work of two connected companies that had already been shut down a year earlier.

The Insolvency Service continues to support the insolvency profession to prepare for the introduction of the Insolvency (Scotland) (Receivership and Winding Up) Rules 2018 and the Insolvency (Scotland) (Company Voluntary Arrangements and Administration) Rules 2018.

To assist readers of the new rules, a table indicating the destination of the provisions in the Insolvency (Scotland) Rules 1986 has been published.

2018 CI Rules – Collated Derivation and Destination Tables (PDF, 505KB, 16 pages)

This document was updated on 16 April 2019

Three huge disused yellow container cranes at Willesden, west London have been removed to make way for a major new HS2 Rail Logistics Hub to support the construction of the new high-speed line’s London tunnels.

The 22 metre high cranes, weighing up to 290 tonnes, have stood above the track next to the busy west coast mainline for almost 30 years. Each one had to be lifted up and moved 100 metres to the side, so they could be safely dismantled away from passing trains.

The removal of the 3 cranes was one of the most complex engineering challenges the project has faced so far, requiring thousands of hours of planning and preparation.

Watch as one of the cranes is dismantled

Once complete, 16 freight trains a day are expected to serve the planned Rail Logistics Hub, delivering equipment and construction materials and taking out material excavated by the tunnel boring machines digging the tunnels east to Euston and west to the outskirts of the capital.

In total, the vast 150,000 square-metre rail hub is expected to process more than 6 million tonnes of excavated material, the equivalent of taking 300,000 HGVs off the roads.

Welcoming the progress, HS2 Project Director, Colin Thomas, said:

Once up and running, the Rail Logistics Hub will be the beating heart of our construction activity in the capital, enabling us to deliver equipment and materials and take out huge amounts of excavated material by rail.

The safe and efficient removal of the Willesden cranes is the first step to making that possible, and a very visible reminder of the progress we are making in the delivery of Britain’s new high speed line.

HS2’s enabling works contractor, a Costain Skanska joint venture (CSjv), working with JF Hunt Ltd (Demolitions) and ALE Heavy Lift used a mobile crane, itself weighing 550 tonnes, to move the first 2 container cranes last year.

The third, and heaviest of the container cranes, was moved by the same team over the Christmas break using a specialist moving motorised jacking system. It was brought down to ground level on the 6th February, in a controlled collapse.

After weakening the structure of the crane, the team used a 49 ton excavator to pull the whole thing down onto specially built crash matts. This crane has now been disassembled at ground level, with 95% of the structure set to be recycled.

Neal Carter, PMO Director at Costain Skanska Joint Venture (Csjv), said:

Costain and Skanska are making strong progress in preparing the area between Euston and the Colne Valley for the new HS2 route. The demolition of the third and largest crane marks the high point of a busy 12 months on site at Willesden.

Our thanks goes to the whole team who safely delivered this challenging piece of work, including working over Christmas Day to move a crane so that no rail customers were disrupted.

Originally known as Willesden Euro Terminal, the site was built to handle container traffic through the Channel Tunnel. The first scheduled freight train to cross the channel departed from Willesden on 27th June 1994, 4 months before the first Eurostar.

A fourth container crane, at the north-west end of the site, will be left in position.

The work is part of HS2’s early works programme, with more than 1,000 people at work across London, clearing the way for the start of construction. At Euston, demolitions are well underway alongside the project’s pioneering archaeology programme, while clearance of Washwood Heath, site of the project’s future rolling stock depot, is also in full swing.

Work to clear the concrete slab covering the site of the new Birmingham Curzon Street station is also underway. In total more than 7,000 jobs are supported by the HS2 project, both directly and in the UK-wide supply chain.