Lancashire haulage and stone merchants company J&J Ashcroft has gone into administration after battling with ill health and the the impact of the Covid pandemic and the driver shortage.

David Acland and Lila Thomas of FRP Advisory have been appointed as joint administrators to the family firm, which was founded in 1935.

Jim Ashcroft, managing director of J&J Ashcroft, whose grandfather founded the company said: “We are, as you can imagine, incredibly upset that we have had to take this decision after such a long trading history. I have been here for over 40 years and, together with our staff, it has been an absolute privilege to have served our loyal customers throughout that period”.

In a statement the joint administrators said: "The current directors had suffered significant health issues in recent years and had hoped to sell the business as a going concern, but the recent well reported problems recruiting HGV drivers, combined with the ongoing challenges of Covid proved too costly and the team from FRP’s Preston office were appointed as joint administrators on 24th November.

"The business has ceased trading and all staff employed by the company have been made redundant. The administrators will be supporting all those affected with claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.

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The Engineers Merchants business operating from the same site remains unaffected.

J&J Ashcroft, which is based at the Lancashire Enterprise Business Park in Leyland, operated a fleet of 17 vehicles. The company, which specialises in providing haulage services to the construction and civil engineering sector, delivered more than 300,000 of aggregates and raodstones a year and provided all tipper related services.

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