THE scale of the fall-out from the collapse of a Hampshire builder with debts of nearly £12m is now becoming clear.

Small suppliers from aluminium contractors to site security are left nursing unpaid debts as high as £150,000 after Michelmersh-based Laishley went under.

One supplier in Fareham is reported to have gone bust as a result of Laishley going into administration last week owing £11.8m, much of it to small firms in Hampshire.

It is feared creditors may get as little as 1p in the pound, although administrators said it was too early to say.

The 25-year-old firm, which had just finished building the headquarters of Ahmad Teas in Chandler’s Ford, was already the subject of a winding-up order from fed-up creditors at Portsmouth County Court before the administration.

Clients said it had been clear that the company was struggling financially and as far back as 2007, the last available accounts, show Laishley made a £279,000 loss on sales of £8.5m.

Paul Cummings of Gosport aluminium firm DWP is owed £130,000.

“We lost our profit for the year basically. It’s money we would have been investing and ploughing back into the company,” he said.

“I must have seen them three times a week for months as I used to hound them and hound them for the money.

“When you put your life and soul into a business like I have, well I’m livid. You wouldn’t believe me how angry I am. We’re an honest company.”

Southampton’s Veritas Security Southern, which protects building sites across the region, is owed £16,000 in the collapse.

Managing director Paul Oldridge said: “I saw the writing on the wall months and months ago. The amount of meetings we had with them about payment and the dates for payment came and went and it never arrived.

“We’ll be able to ride through this fortunately, but some of the smaller firms around here are going to go bust.”

Peter House, managing director of Park Gate-based supplier HH Aluminium, launched legal action against Laishley in 2009 to recover £30,000 in unpaid debts.

After around a year, a cheque for the full amount turned up the day before a court hearing, but he was still left nursing £7,000 costs.

Mr House said: “In all the years we’ve been trading that’s the only company we have ever had to go down the legal route to get our money. We stopped dealing with them after that. They offered us jobs but we said ‘no way’.

“I think a lot of local guys are going to get hit by this.”

Laishley was run by directors Stephen Anthony Johnson, 53, of Southampton; Richard John White, 50, of Romsey and Richard Anthony Smith, 45, of Wimborne, Dorset.

A member of Laishley’s staff, who did not want to be named, said: “I have heard of one firm in Fareham that has definitely gone under because of us collapsing and there’s a lot of guys owed some big money £100,000 or £150,000.

“The staff knew there were financial problems a good two years ago but we were never told the full story.

“Subcontractors were forever chasing money and in general were drip fed a small amount at a time.”

He said around 20 staff had been “very badly let down by the Laishley directors”.

“We the staff, like most of the subcontractors, are now having to count the cost,” he said. “We were told not to worry because our salary was ring fenced and held by a solicitor. Then I got a phone call indicating that we were not now going to be paid. The administrator had taken control of it.

“A lot of the staff are angry and are having to take out loans from family or banks to survive while they are sitting in their big houses.”

Another member of staff said: “There must have been 40 contractors working on that tea company building and I guarantee a very high percentage of them are owed money.”

A spokesman for administrators Vantis said that factors which contributed to the firm’s collapse included a substantial loss on a recent contract, leading to cash flow difficulties, and the winter’s bad weather, which caused long periods of inactivity.

He said it was not anticipated that there would be a sale of the business.