Invest NI is attempting to ‘claw back’ £70,000 of taxpayer funds it paid to a failed call centre in Enniskillen.

Lakeland Trading Solutions Ltd. opened in a blaze of publicity in October 2014, promising to create 49 jobs in three years. The company was offered a total of £343,000 support from Invest NI if it fulfilled this commitment. However, The Impartial Reporter can reveal that the call centre closed in August 2015, ten months after its official opening. By that stage it had drawn down £70,000 from Invest NI.

The news comes in the same week that Invest NI’s Western Regional Manager Patricia Devine sent out a press release outlining the work that Invest NI and its enterprise partners have been doing to boost the economy in the western region. 

Directed by Enniskillen native Matthew Martin and his Welsh business partner Lee Hanford, Lakeland Trading Solutions Ltd. had been operating out of Erne House in the Killyhevlin Industrial Estate. Eleven people were initially employed but the business got off to a rocky start, with seven staff let go after just two months. When the company closed last August it is understood to have had three full-time and three part-time staff.

Lakeland Trading Solutions Ltd. is still listed as ‘active’ on the UK Government’s Companies House website but its accounts up to 30 June 2015 are overdue.

Speaking to this newspaper at the official opening of the insurance call centre back in 2014, Mr. Martin had said that there was “an abundance of talent” in Enniskillen’s insurance sector and he wanted to bring jobs to his home town. He revealed that his business partners had wanted to locate the business in Bristol or Swansea but he had convinced them to visit Enniskillen and meet Invest NI, who “got it over the line”. The then Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said at the time: “Here we have a Fermanagh man who has returned to Fermanagh to set up a business; a business that I think will grow.”
When Lakeland Trading Solutions laid off over 50 per cent of its workforce in December 2014, Lee Hanford told The Impartial Reporter that the staff had been unable to deliver and “for the business to be sustainable some harsh decisions had to be made.”

Neither Mr. Martin or Mr. Hanford responded to our queries this week.

However, a former employee described Mr. Martin as “a great boss” and said that the 32-year-old Chartered Accountant “was visibly upset about the company closing down.” The employee said: “It was a good work place and I was sad to see it closed down. It was just unfortunate how the business didn’t do as well as we thought it would.”

Describing how the staff found out they were to lose their jobs, the former employee said: “[Mr. Martin] flew over and came and talked with us in the office. He told us that the businesses wasn’t meeting expectations and was bleeding money. 
“Just by looking at him I knew he was visibly upset.
“He did try everything to keep the company afloat. Months before, when the insurance policies weren’t selling, he got a guy in to help train members on energy selling such as gas and electricity from the four main suppliers. So our boss did try everything possible to keep people in work and the company breathing.”

Asked to confirm how much financial support Lakeland Trading Solutions received, an Invest NI spokeswoman stated: “Invest NI has procedures in place to closely monitor the support it provides to companies and as with all Invest NI offers of support, a company will only receive the support once it has met specific targets outlined in the Letter of Offer.
“Lakeland Trading was able to draw down £70,000 of the total support offered. However, as the company has not met the conditions of our offer to create and sustain the jobs for a set period of time, Invest NI is now pursuing clawback.”