£300,000 of business rate debts to be written-off by Flintshire County Council

More than £300,000 of business rate debts is expected to be written-off by Flintshire County Council this week as the authority has no way to recover the money.

It includes £132,648.38 owed by Westbridge Furniture Ltd and £110,001.99 owed by the former WH Smiths – now known as TG Jones.

On Tuesday Cabinet will be asked to approve the write-off of £312,550.12 for 2026/27 as a result of unrecoverable bad debts.

The losses will not be felt directly by Flintshire taxpayers as they will be settled through the National Collection Pool for Wales – a safety net all Welsh council’s pay into to ensure individual authorities are not adversely affected by businesses collapsing.

This year’s write-offs for Flintshire include TG Jones which, despite still trading as a business from sites in Broughton Shopping Park and Mold High Street, undertook a restructuring agreement at the High Court in July this year to avoid calling in administrators.

That agreement meant that unpaid business rates of £110,725 for its Broughton site and £14,525 for the Mold store became unrecoverable – with the business instead offering compensation payments to Flintshire Council of £12,740.96 for Broughton and £2,507.05 for Mold – the equivalent of six and nine weeks business rates respectively.

The largest debt Flintshire Council will not be able to recover however is that of Westbridge Furniture.

The Greenfield Business Park-based manufacturer incorporated in February 2025 following a pre-pack insolvency of a previous group of companies including Westbridge Furniture Designs Ltd.

A pre-pack insolvency is one where the sale of the businesses affected is agreed before the administrators are appointed.

The firm manufactured and supplied upholstered furniture to major retailers across the UK from its Flintshire Council-owned factory February 2025 to April 2026.

Despite efforts to improve efficiency, rising costs and fragile consumer confidence meant Westbridge was unable to escape its financial issues and it was placed into administration in March this year.

After a month administrators Interpath had failed to find a buyer and wound up the business, making 300 employees redundant.

Apart from the final month of trading, Westbridge paid no business rates in its final year.

Flintshire County Council is also expected to  write-off debts owed by Poundstretcher – £26,086.81 and food manufacturer KCC Ltd of £43,812.94.

Like TG Jones, Poundstretcher has had a restructuring plan sanctioned by the High Court that means the majority of business rates owed on its Mold High Street store are now unrecoverable.

It will pay just £7,798  of a total debt of £26,086.81 owed to Flintshire.

KCC is a plant-based food packaging manufacturer that relocated from Hampshire to Rhydymwyn in 2024.

In two years however the company director paid just £500 in business rates and – with no manufacturing activity seeming to take place there since November 2024, the business was liquidated in June this year.

It collapsed with £189,000 of trading losses and was £520,000 short of meeting its liabilities to unsecured creditors.

By Alec Doyle – Local Democracy Reporter