Toddlers left in lurch as firm goes bust

2:22pm Wednesday 21st May 2008

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A toddler group has been forced to cancel a trip for more than 100 children and mums to a top tourist attraction after a Bradford travel firm went bust.

The Adam and Eve toddler group, based at Bolton Villas United Reformed Church at Wrose, are the latest customers of Wrose Travel to be left in the lurch after the company went into liquidation.

They have already paid almost £1,000 to send 130 toddlers and some parents on luxury coaches to Gulliver's Kingdom in Cheshire in August.

But the youngsters, all of whom are four or younger, and their parents and group leaders have been left "devastated" because they can no longer go, the group's leaders said.

Grandmother Trisha Fitzgerald, 61, had planned to take her three-year-old grandson, Ewan Jones, for a fun day out.

Mrs Fitzgerald, of Plumpton Close, Wrose, said: "We are gutted. We were really looking forward to going. Everybody had booked their holiday around it and now we can't go."

Kirsten Bennett, a co-leader of the group, paid £950 in January for three buses to make the 110-mile round trip to the children's fun park.

She said: "We thought we would support a local company based in the local area. They have been running for a few years and we didn't think anything of using them."

Fellow leader Kath Jarvis said the group had tried to contact Wrose Travel a number of times after hearing rumours the company had gone out of business.

She said: "We put up the funds as a group so that we could book the coaches and forget about it until August, and we have not heard anything from them at all.

"We have had to cancel it now. We have told the mums and everybody is absolutely devastated. Some of them had been saving up to take the children and now we can't go."

Wrose Travel boss Paul Burke confirmed to the T&A that the company had now gone into liquidation. The move has left a trail of angry customers, including policeman David Moffatt of Wyke, Bradford, who was told the firm could not take him and 50 friends to Ripon Racecourse the day before they were to go.

Eventually, he managed to sort out alternative arrangements at short notice - at a cost of £350 - but Wrose Travel still owes him £350, which he fears he will never get back.

Meanwhile, Gary Spencer of Park Road, Low Moor, Bradford, thought his stag party to Whitby may have been in jeopardy after reading about the problems.

He had booked with the company for 40 of his friends to travel to the coast and, at the same time, booked a coach to Newcastle for fiancee Kylie Wilson's hen party. He said: "We pulled up at the shop to get a paper after we saw a travel company had gone bust and we were amazed when we realised it was Wrose Travel."

Luckily another coach firm, Travel Express, contacted Mr Spencer to arrange a coach to Whitby, meaning he will not lose out on the £150 deposit he paid.

Mr Burke declined to comment.

e-mail: marc.meneaud @telegraphandargus.co.uk

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