Latest news with #Orpington
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
M&S in Orpington to close for several months for ‘huge transformation'
An Orpington M&S is set to close for several months as it undergoes a huge transformation. The M&S store in Nugent Park will close at 7pm today (May 24). The store will close for several months and is set to be finished later this summer. Once completed, the transformed store will feature a much bigger fresh market-style foodhall, offering more seasonal produce from M&S' Select Farm partners. Customers will be able to enjoy a 'show-stopping' bakery and coffee counter serving a selection of breads and pastries, alongside takeaway hot drinks. Other features will include an expanded frozen section, four times bigger than the current offer, as well as dedicated Flower and Wine shops. Meanwhile, a new spacious Fashion and Beauty layout will deliver two floors of stylish choices, across Womenswear, Menswear, Kidswear and a Beauty section, offering M&S' popular Apothecary range. The transformation is part of the retailer's £90m investment in stores across central and Greater London, estimated to create 450 new jobs. In Orpington, an estimated 80 new colleagues are set to join the team. M&S Orpington first opened back in 2007 and its store team are being temporarily deployed to nearby stores until the transformation is complete. While work is underway, customers can still go to nearby Bromley, Sidcup, and Bluewater Shopping Centre stores. The Orpington store is led by Edward Lipscombe, who has worked at M&S for a decade. He said: 'We are so excited to have a bigger and better M&S for our loyal customers in Orpington. 'We will have the very best of M&S Food, more innovative products and more choice across fashion and beauty, which we know our customers love and want more of. 'The shopping experience will also be much better, with more space making it much easier to shop. 'I can promise the store will be worth the wait when we open the doors again later this summer. 'In the meantime, my team and I will be helping out in nearby stores and look forward to seeing our regular customers there too.'
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Businessman who ran company with his glamorous WAG daughter and lost her partner Scott McTominay 'almost £1m' when it collapsed fights to save his £4m home
The father of Scott McTominay 's partner is fighting to save his £4m home from being seized after his business collapsed. Businessman Ashley Reading, 55, ran investment firm Fortress Capital Partners alongside his glamorous WAG daughter Cam Reading, 25, promoting annual returns of up to 18 per cent before collapsing into administration in 2023. The former Manchester United star, who now plays for Napoli, was one of the investors reported to be set to lose large sums due to the collapse of his girlfriend's father's business. The 28-year-old is understood to have ploughed £1million cash, plus £1.32million from his own company, into Fortress, with Boyzone singer Shane Lynch, 48, also said to have made a £730,000 investment in the firm. In March 2024, the company owed its 230 creditors a total of nearly £18million. The company borrowed money from its investors before lending it out at a higher rate to corporate entities and one 'high net worth individual'. Around the same time, another company run by Mr Reading, Rose Cottage Farm Ltd, also got into trouble, failing to make payments on a £4m mansion in Kent which the entrepreneur had moved his family into. Furzefield, in Holwood Park Avenue, Orpington, is a large six-bedroomed house, set in about one acre of grounds on a gated estate, bought through the company in 2022 for around £2.5m and later marketed for £3.95m. Mr Reading is now being sued by a mortgage company in a bid to seize the mansion and turf the entrepreneur and his family out. McTominay's girlfriend Ms Reading has worked extensively alongside her father, previously being Fortress' head of investor relations and described as an 'integral part of the Fortress Capital team'. The model - who is now enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Naples, with the couple reported to have moved into a house by Lago Patria, a coastal lake close to the beach - also worked with her father as a financial adviser at Bounce, a company previously run by him. But Mr Reading is now locked in a fight to hang onto his own £4m home after administrators made a High Court bid to seize the property from the company through which he bought it. London's Court of Appeal heard that Rose Cottage Farm Ltd was a special purpose vehicle set up by Mr Reading to buy Furzefield in 2022 for £2.5m. Doncaster-based TFG Capital No.2 Limited lent a total of £2.85 million to the company in August 2022, secured by a mortgage over the house and any other company assets. The loan documents contained a covenant by the company not to permit occupation of the house or land as a dwelling by any person related to the company. 'However, Mr Reading and various members of his family and other dependents took up residence at the house on the land in early 2023,' said appeal judge Lord Justice Snowden, adding that 'the company defaulted on the April 2023.' The judge said that the arrears and interest now owed on the mortgage have taken the debt claimed by the loan company over £4m, and that they are fighting for possession of the property and to force Mr Reading and his family out. 'They have not contended that they have any formal lease or other agreement with the company entitling them to remain there,' the judge added. In August 2023, the loan company appointed receivers, with 'the power to demand and receive monies payable in respect of the land and to take possession and sell it.' After the receivers 'took the view that Mr Reading was not co-operating with them in seeking to arrange a sale of the land,' the mortgage company sued in August 2023, 'seeking an order for possession of the land' at Bromley County Court. But Mr Reading 'indicated an intention to contest the Bromley proceedings on a wide variety of grounds' and 'took a number of steps designed to frustrate (the) claim,' the judge said. Becoming impatient, the mortgage company then appointed administrators who in March last year at the High Court in Leeds issued an application under the Insolvency Act in the name of the company, seeking an order that they could sell the property and 'that Mr Reading and all current occupiers of the property deliver up vacant possession of the land'. In a ruling in May last year, Judge Jonathan Klein ordered the company 'must deliver possession of [the Land] to the administrators before the end of 11 July 2024.' But Mr Reading was granted permission to appeal against that order in July last year, and now has succeeded in having it overturned. Lord Justice Snowden, sitting with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Nugee, allowed Mr Reading's appeal, overturning the High Court order as an 'abuse of process' and saying it essentially replicated the possession proceedings already started, but not yet concluded, in the county court. 'For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this decision in relation to the application is intended to have any effect upon the Bromley proceedings or upon the merits of that claim,' the judge added. The case in the county court will now go forward at a later date.
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
'Our Simone died after drinking free shots on holiday'
Loved ones of a Kent woman who died from methanol poisoning are urging the government to do more to educate young people on the risks of drinking bootleg alcohol Simone White, from Orpington, died in 2024 along with five others after consuming free shots they were offered at a hostel in Laos, south-east MP for Dartford raised the issue in a debate in Parliament on Tuesday, calling for compulsory education on the issue in in the Westminster Hall debate, Foreign Office minister Catherine West paid tribute to Simone's family and thanked them for raising the profile of the issue. She said the government was acting in response to the "tragic losses". 'It's got to stop' Amanda Dennis, a family representative, said Simone had a "zest for life". "She was very well educated... [and] well-travelled. She was a lovely young lady, who had a lot more to live for." Ms Dennis added they initially thought the lawyer would pull through, but days later they were told by hospital staff there was "no hope" of survival. She said the family was "joining forces" with others who had lost loved ones in the same way."You can't have any more young people losing their lives unnecessarily," she said. "It's got to stop." Speaking in Parliament, Dartford MP Jim Dickson praised the "courage" of Simone's family and others who were "fighting for justice" and "trying to raise awareness so that other families don't have to lose loved ones in the same tragic circumstances".In an interview with BBC South East, he said he was calling on the government to "increase the awareness among young people of a likelihood of methanol poisoning".He said he wanted the Foreign Office website to be "very, very clear" about the risk of bootleg alcohol in certain countries and that it "probably needs to do more"."Above all we think it should be in the school curriculum," said Ms Dickson. "Young people should be being taught from a very early age that methanol poisoning is a possibility... and how to take action to avoid it." 'More awareness needed' Mr Dickson said there were a number of ways young people could distinguish between "drink that is ok and drink that might poison them", including avoiding "knock-off brands that are posing as mainstream brands".Kay Coleman, mother of Bethany who was poisoned along with Simone but survived, said they had started a petition for compulsory education on methanol poisoning in schools. "There needs to be more awareness," she said, adding that the "message [needs to get] across fully about the dangers" of drinking bootleg alcohol.A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We are supporting the family of a British woman who has died in Laos and we are in contact with the local authorities."Information on methanol poisoning in Laos is available on the Foreign Office website, they added.
