Pensioners devastated as holiday cancelled
Pensioners who paid more than £1,000 to a holiday firm for a trip to the seaside today spoke of their devastation after the company went into administration and their trip was cancelled.
Pensioners who paid more than £1,000 to a holiday firm for a trip to the seaside today spoke of their devastation after the company went into administration and their trip was cancelled.
Wednesbury couple Jean and Wilfrid Woodhouse had been looking forward to spending a week at the Sherwood Hotel in Torquay with relatives Ralph and Wendy Hocknull.
They had paid McColls of Argyll £1,157 for the trip.
The four were due to set off yesterday but last Tuesday they received a call saying the company, which offers coach holidays around the country, had gone into administration along with the firm's sister company McColls of Argyll Hotels and Tours.
Mr and Mrs Woodhouse, from College Close, and Mr and Mrs Hocknull, from The Marsh, today said they had been left in limbo, claiming they had not been told whether they will be able to go away at a later date or get a refund.
Administrators have said they will have a better outlook on the situation tomorrow.
Great grandmother-of-one Mrs Woodhouse, aged 69, said: "We paid a lot of money for the week and it was only taken on July 21 so they must have known by then that they were going to go into administration.
"I could have sat there and cried. I got everything ready to pack in my case. I felt gutted really. We saved really hard for the holiday. We've heard nothing saying we can have another holiday or our money back.
"If they had a coach full due to go down this week, that's thousands of pounds of people's money."
BDO LLP business restructuring partners, James Stephen and David Hill, have been appointed joint administrators.
And Mr Stephen said they expected to have a "definitive position" concerning the situation tomorrow.
He said holiday bookings were still being taken but that customers would be refunded if trips were cancelled.
The company also runs The Brunswick pub, Crankhall Lane, Wednesbury, as well as a 65-bedroom McColls hotel in Dunoon, Argyll. Five jobs at the pub, along with 55 jobs at both hotels, have been left hanging in the balance.
