An Ipswich haulage and warehousing group is shedding 15 jobs and entering an arrangement with its creditors after one of its subsidiaries lost business from a major customer.

East Anglian Daily Times: The Dooley Rumble site at Great Blakenham, Ipswich Picture: GOOGLEMAPSThe Dooley Rumble site at Great Blakenham, Ipswich Picture: GOOGLEMAPS (Image: Googlemaps)

The James Dolan Group, which employs about 90 staff overall, and has a turnover of £8m, consists of James Dolan Limited (JDL) and its two operating subsidiaries, Green & Skinner (Haulage) Limited (GSH) and Dooley Rumble Group Limited (DRG).

The business applied to the courts to enter a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) on February 28, 2019.

A CVA is an insolvency procedure which enables a company with debt problems or that is insolvent to reach a voluntary agreement with its business creditors regarding repayment of all, or part of its corporate debts over an agreed period of time.

“DRG was acquired by the group in October 2017. By mid-2018 it was apparent that sales and margins where not at the levels expected. In part this was due to a substantial loss in sales from one of the Export packing division’s largest customer. This in turn impacted the freight forwarding division,” said director James Dolan.

East Anglian Daily Times: The Dooley Rumble site at Great Blakenham, Ipswich Picture: GOOGLEMAPSThe Dooley Rumble site at Great Blakenham, Ipswich Picture: GOOGLEMAPS (Image: Googlemaps)

“Since then the group made various efforts to revive both divisions, but without success. This resulted in the difficult decision to close firstly the freight forwarding division and subsequently the Export Packing division, with the loss of 15 jobs.

“The decision to try and trade out the poor performance has had a severely negative impact on cashflow, a situation that can only be resolved by restructuring the whole group. This restructure is expected to be resolved through the use of the CVA which will be overseen by specialist restructuring professionals.”

The James Dolan Group has consisted of four main trading divisions – Freight Forwarding, Warehousing, Distribution and Export Packing.

Its experienced Freight Forwarders have more than 30 years’ experience in land, sea and air logistics for moving clients’ freight around the world.

It also has a fleet of more than 50 vehicles to deliver anything from a small package to 45ft containers.

From its headquarters at Claydon Business Park on the outskirts of Ipswich it provides services to local and national businesses.