MYSTERY surrounds how a well known Southampton transport business that went bust owing £1.7m continues to trade despite being in liquidation.

West End based Boyes Conning Freight Services collapsed earlier this month but staff are still working on site and drivers are being sent out across the south to make deliveries.

Even liquidators, who were appointed on September 8, after creditors including Barclays Bank pulled the plug, admit they don’t know who employees are now working for.

About 30 staff, who despite being sent redundancy letters back dated to August, have continued to turn up for work and be paid. On Friday they were issued with blank payslips.

The bizarre situation has led at least one member of staff to quit, with others on the verge of going amid confusion about their future. They are also concerned about losing claims for possible redundancy payments.

One member of staff who talked to the Daily Echo said they were in the dark about what is happening but were determined to protect jobs and the business they had. Industry rumours suggested Northern Irish firm Tinnelly Transport, a former sub-contractor of Boynes Conning, may take on Boyes contracts and staff.

An announcement is expected to be made today.

At one stage Boyes was a major transport player operating 50 vehicles, from Transit vans to 44 tonne articulated lorries, delivering goods from Southampton Container Terminal across the region.

But financial woes saw the loss-making former Palletways member sold for a pound in July by then owner Graham Westcott.

In that deal Manchester businessman Faridoon Yaghoobzadeh, 57, took control as sole director when his London based firm Millgold Investments, bought Boyes’ parent company GJ Cooper Holdings.

In little over a month after Mr Yaghoobzadeh took control, Barclays claimed already debt stricken Boyes ran up a hefty £74,000 “unauthorised overdraft”.

Mr Yaghoobzadeh told a creditors’ meeting he only ever spent two days a week at GJ Cooper and Boyes Conning’s head office on the Chalcroft Distribution Park and had no power to sign-off invoices. A worker told the Daily Echo he had never seen Mr Yaghoobzadeh at the site.

Boyes’ estimated statement of affairs revealed a total deficiency of £1.7m. GJ Cooper Holdings is owed around £796,000 and a sister company Cooper Road Sea is owed £13,052.

No-one from Worcestershire liquidators Rimes & Co was available for comment but a spokesman told trade media they found the employees’ situation “confusing”.

The spokesman said: “We have written to them to inform them of their redundancy, but it seems that no one has stopped working. That begs the question: who are they working for?

We are not in a position to answer that.”

Calls to Boyes Conning were referred to former MD Simon Webb, who still works at the firm, but was unavailable.