Ian Taylor


Ten ex-Baldwins staff join Ashdown 40


The company was wound up


Ten long-serving Baldwins Travel staff have returned to the industry with Ashdown Travel as the agency confirmed plans to expand from a single store in Oxted, Surrey, for the first time in its 40-year history. Ashdown intends to open shops


in Baldwins’ old Kent heartland of Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks within weeks. The recruits include Tricia Lester,


Baldwins’ commercial and marketing manager who worked at the company for 30-plus years. She will become Ashdown’s head of retail overseeing the three agencies. Baldwins had been an Advantage


Travel Partnership member alongside Ashdown for many years.


at a High Court hearing on July 9 following a petition by sole director Nick Marks ending months of difficulty during which Abta had terminated Baldwins’ membership after a protracted process, Iata suspended its accreditation and an investment firm sent in receivers to seize the company’s head office and buildings in Tonbridge and Tenterden, Kent. However, the difficulties extended


back to September 2021 when Baldwins was acquired by Inc Travel Group run by Jack Mason, who became a Baldwins director, Scott Dylan and David Antrobus. Two months later, Barclays Bank


issued proceedings against Mason, Dylan and Antrobus in pursuit of


Lowcost Travel Group dissolved nine years after ceasing trading


Ian Taylor


The liquidators of Lowcost Travel Group finally dissolved the company this month nine years after it ceased trading and seven since it went into liquidation. The group, comprising companies


registered in the UK and Spain, was placed in voluntary liquidation in July 2018 following an administration process that realised a mere £14,599. The directors’ statement of


affairs made at the time of the administration had recognised creditors’ claims worth more than £50 million.


6 31 JULY 2025 However, joint liquidators Finbarr


O’Connell, Colin Hardman, Henry Shinners and Lane Bednash received claims totalling almost £146 million, including a £69.5 million claim submitted by Lowcost’s former credit card acquirer Chase Paymentech and £46.5 million in intercompany claims. Lloyds Bank had submitted a claim for £564,000. The unprotected losses suffered


by the card acquirer and bank will have contributed to inflating the costs of card transactions across the sector. The liquidation resulted in


no return to creditors despite the liquidators noting previously that they


Number of years Ashdown Travel has been trading


£13.7 million in “unauthorised borrowings”, claiming some of the money was used to acquire Baldwins. Barclays then obtained High


Court freezing orders against the three men and their assets including Baldwins, preventing their transfer beyond the UK’s legal jurisdiction. In July last year, the three were


found guilty of breaching these orders by moving assets, including Baldwins, first to the British Virgin Islands and


then to the US state of Delaware, and were sentenced to prison. Barely two months earlier,


Baldwins had acquired Westerham Travel with Marks becoming a director alongside chief commercial officer and fellow director Dan Shaw. Westerham continued to trade


under its own name. Its accounts for the period to June 2024 show just £14,000 owed to creditors and no outstanding charges. However, an outstanding charge held by NatWest bank was settled by Baldwins in May 2024. The sums involved and signatories on behalf of Baldwins have been redacted on Companies House documents. Shaw resigned as a Baldwins


director last November after Abta’s initial attempt to expel the company.


Majorca: Lowcost’s base from 2013


were pursuing “a potential action”. The penultimate liquidators’


report last September informed creditors that “following legal advice, it has been determined it would not be cost beneficial to continue to pursue this claim”, adding: “We therefore conclude that no further investigations will be carried out in respect of the group.” Lowcost Travel ceased trading


in July 2016 with 27,000 customers abroad and 112,000 bookings after relocating from the UK to Palma in 2013 to trade outside the Atol regime. It operated a significant online agency and bed bank business


with a Balearics financial guarantee worth just €1.2 million against its losses due to failure. Company founder and chief


executive Paul Evans was a vocal critic of both the Atol scheme and Abta and argued repeatedly that the costs of Atol and of Abta bonding bore no relation to the financial risks of trading. The company’s collapse continues


to reverberate, having contributed to the failure of airport transfer provider Resorthoppa in March, which went into administration having been forced to write off £1.3 million of a £4.9 million debt owed by Lowcost.


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