THE uncertainty over Brexit has been blamed for bringing down businesses such as a plumbers’ merchant which has closed with the loss of 15 jobs.

Bournemouth insolvency adviser Mark Liddle says he has seen his workload rise by a quarter since last June’s referendum on European Union membership.

His remarks came as he prepared to liquidate Rockett Plumbing and Heating Supplies, in Wimborne Road, Moordown.

The company’s failure was blamed on several factors including bad debts and a slump in demand soon after last year’s EU referendum.

Mr Liddle said: “What’s happened since Brexit was that directors of different companies came in to see me and they all said the same thing, that ‘our business has dropped off’.

“I said ‘Why do you reckon that is?’. I’m not interested at all in Brexit but they all said the same thing. ‘We think it’s Brexit.’

“I think what Brexit has done is to confuse a few people and I think it’s making one or two people wary.”

He said he was especially noticing the effect in the building industry, where work was being done more cheaply to bring in business.

“The most work we’re getting at the moment is from the construction industry. The construction industry is at its busiest for a long time but rates are dropping,” he said.

But Simon Boyd, of Christchurch firm ReidSteel, who last year chaired the pro-Leave group Business for Britain in the South West, believed the economy was doing well.

He said: “There’s always been competition in the markets and there’s always been people sailing too close to the wind in a competitive market.

“If one thing goes wrong, it can upset their business plan and they can end up going down the tubes.”

He said economic statistics currently seemed good and there was “keen competition” in business.

“While we were in the EU, it didn’t stop some of the biggest recessions back in the 1980s and 1990s and the financial crash of 2007 which saw a lot of businesses going under,” he said.

“Businesses have to be able to remain flexible and move with the times and I’m still of the opinion that there’s a great prize to be won here for British business.”

n More on the collapse of Rockett Plumbing and Heating Supplies in Business, page 15.