WARRINGTON town centre supermarket Asco, which opened less than five months ago, has closed.
Signs on the doors say the store is closed only temporarily.
But a local business contacted Warrington-Worldwide today and said the firm has several county court judgement against them and are being taken to court on May 17 for a winding up order.
Asco opened shortly before Christmas in the former Woolworth store in Sankey Street claiming to offer “a real alternative.”
But it has seldom appeared busy and laid off some staff almost within days of opening.
A spokesman at the time said they had “taken on too many staff.”
The businessman who contacted us today said he had carried out work on the store and had outstanding invoices dating back to November.
Asco opened with plans that the Warrington store would be the first of a chain of supermarkets across the North West.
It had plans to open a branch in Formby next month but it is understood they have run into problems there.
They originally talks of opening in St Helens and Halton as well.
Only two or three weeks ago the company said they were planning a relaunch at the Sankey Street store.
Supermarket closes after five months
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
12 Comments
Very sad news – and I hope the closure IS temporary. I think Warrington people have let this store down. They have stayed away – presumably because they would sooner shop at a supermarket where they can park and not have to carry their shopping far.
But in fact the superstores – the Tescos, Sainsburys and Asdas of this world – need competition from independents. It is just so difficult for independents to succeed – particuarly when the public is lazy
I agree it is sad but they were pricey and the store layout wasn’t great – a bit depressing really. I went in once and felt no inclination to go back again!
The store layout was a mess … no thought gone into it to maximise the impact a new shop needs onto the public …. so might not be the public being lazy more like the staff and managers being lazy … In the current climate people want bargains and yes i agree the shop was too pricey , especially when u can get cheaper from the supermarkets
seems there was some incentive offered to get people jobs there and those incentives have now run out.. exploitation of the worst kind
The shop was bizarre. There was no coherence at all. Half the lines were expensive, niché, but high quality products. Half of them were terrible, cheap and nasty. It seemed on one side to be a bargain shop and the other an upmarket deli style place. there had been no thought into what they were trying to achieve and it failed on so many accounts.
I kept trying to go in to buy things, but there were often gaps on the shelves and nothing I wanted.
I saw a few people outside the closed shop just over a week ago, who said they worked their and had not been paid for 6 weeks. They also got sent letters telling them to hand in their uniforms.
There was a van taking stuff outside the back of the shop a couple of days ago, when a car blocked the van in. The driver of the car worked at Asco and also said ‘they owe us our money’.
They were about to open a store in Formby, as well as in Runcorn & St Helens. The people of Formby have apparently been warned of this situation.
Also, Asco’s director Ted Ward has also been disqualified from being a company director for 12 years (just look on the website for the Darwen Reporter – http://www.darwenreporter.com) . Darwen FC also went bust thanks to this man.
Link to this story: http://www.darwenreporter.com/2010/04/exowner-of-darwen-fc-banned-from-being-a-company-director-for-12-years
I think this situation is about to become rather nasty as people who got jobs at Asco thought they were part of a new beginning for Warrington, only to be completely conned and sold down the river.
Mr Ward is not a popular figure in Darwen as not only did he cause the bankruptcy of the town’s 134-year-old football club, he also started a newspaper which went bust after nine months leaving printers, suppliers and journalists unpaid but he also left a string of debts to small traders. Some traders have told me that they are owed up to £12,000 . It’s no suprise to me or others in Darwen what he’s been up to in other parts of the region. It’s time the police took an interest in his activities.
I heard that too. I believe the paper was called The Darrener. Only a matter of time before the cops start looking at Ward. I also went to Formby a few days ago (mainly to walk the dog on the beach) and saw a handfult of people looking outside the empty premises where Asco was going to be. I told them about the story of the closure of the store in Warrington and that their Formby store will never see the light of day.
David, I worked for The Darrener as a freelance journalist. Mr Ward ran up a bill of nearly £600 for stories I provided for the paper. I managed to get it out of him but only by setting shaven headed , scouse debt collectors on him. He crumbled under their pressure (phone calls 24/7) and paid up. Tough maybe but I’d done the work and he needed to be made aware that he couldn’t walk away from his debts. I feel so sorry for the staff at Warrington who’ve worked for up to eight weeks only to be left with a big fat zero for their all their efforts.
I see you know first hand of what Ted Ward is like then Linda? At least he won’t be able to run a Ltd company for the next 12 years. It may be very little or no consolation to the poor folk at Asco, but at least it’s a start! Apparently, the bailiffs were regularly visiting the store for unpaid bills, and I hear that a winding-up petition is due to be heard next next from a Haydock businessman who is oved over £25k for unpaid signage. The store’s website is still running online too. How strange! Staff in the store were apparently being paid ‘cash in hand’ or by cheque which was either post-dated or bounced when they went to put in their bank. As well as Formby, Runcorn & St Helens (my hometown, although I do work in Warrington), Asco were planning to open stores in Lancaster as well as Huntington in Cambridgeshire. The news of this fiasco has now spread to these towns. As I said earlier, just a matter of time before the police come to visit Ward as well as the folks in the tax office for unpaid wages and tax. One day, his number will finally be up.
The police whisking him away to prison would be doing him a kindness and maybe saving his skin. I run Darwen Reporter and the comments some folk have been leaving suggest that one day he might end up being bundled into a car and getting the beating of his life! They are absolutely baying for his blood! Some comments about him were so bad that I just could not publish them!
Trust me Linda, I can believe it! I’ve read some of the comments about this crook on the Darwen Reporter website. The same will be very true here in Warrington. Yet Ward appears to be rather well protected against personal loss and is said to reside in a rather large house in Cheshire. By the way, just watch out for any further dealings by Ward’s successor David Lamey (who took over as Asco’s director). I’ve been hearing he’s a rather unsavoury character too.