A Peak District mountain rescue team is out of pocket after losing nearly £5,000 to a supplier that went out of business.
Edale Mountain Rescue Team paid £4,750 to made-to-measure clothing specialists Slioch Outdoor Equipment as part of a £17,000 order. Weeks later, Slioch was placed in receivership and the rescuers now find themselves at the bottom of a list of creditors with little chance of getting their money back.
Team leader Ian Bunting expressed his bitter disappointment at the loss, which will blow a big hole in the team’s annual budget. Last year, the team spent £173,000 on its activities, but had income of only £153,000.
As with all Britain’s volunteer mountain rescue teams, Edale MRT relies on public donations to run its service.
Slioch’s range was at the top end of the market, with the company’s top waterproof jackets retailing at more than £400.
The garments were made at their factory at Poolewe on the north-west coast of Scotland and Slioch boasted many MRTs among its customers, with its Mountain Tech range aimed squarely at rescuers, having been developed with the RAF Kinloss MRT.
Calls by grough to the Slioch Outdoor Equipment number went unanswered.
Pete Stuart
16 October 2008How on earth do you get £400 for waterproof
Dave Shand
16 October 2008I cannot understand why Edale Mountain Rescue Team did not go for competitive bid to other companies such as Hilltrek who do similar garments.
They would not have lost their deposit because we would not have asked for one in the first place!
Bob Smith
16 October 2008So that would be a free advert for your company then, Dave. grough offers very reasonable rates for advertisers. Click on the link at the bottom of the page for details.
grough editor
Adi Floyde
18 October 2008Maybe a outdoor clothing company will show heart and offer a donation in similar clothing, it would make good PR and I am sure good advertising if they felt they needed to shout about the fact.
Maybe Hilltrek would consider it!
PaulB
19 October 2008Please add the following instead of my lastone (sorry realised wrong email address).
i noticed that the Slioch website is routed to a new company called Firemore.
Maybe this new company has bought the website rights as well as stock etc from the liquidators which then may mean there would be funds for repaying Edale MRC.
On the Firemore "About Us" page it gives full contact details for Firemore which is run by a previous employer of Slioch Outdoor Equipment.
The Piglit
20 October 2008I'm sorry that they've lost the money we've given them but er, sorry, a) 400 quid is a lot of dosh for such an item and b) it's normal business practice not to upfront all the money for an order until the goods have been delivered.
Who owned/owns this company?
I have a horrible feeling there are some unanswered questions here.
Colin
20 October 2008I reckon £400 is quite reasonable for a top of the range, made to measure caggy. Also it is not unusual to pay a deposit up front on such a large order - otherwise one party is taking all the risk.
What's worrying is that Edale MRT's budget is tiny but they are still running at a loss...
Bob Smith
20 October 2008To be fair to Edale MRT, they had a deficit of £20,000 on their activities in 2007, but had surpluses of £46,000 and £11,000 in the previous two years.
2007 was obviously a big year for the team, as their income more than doubled and their expenditure was nearly six times that of the previous year.
If you want to help them out financially, they have a donation website: http://www.justgiving.com/edalemrt/donate - grough editor