POOLE Pottery Outlets Ltd, which officially closed for business this week, faces legal action from retailers and landlords, claiming they are owed up to £250,000 pounds.

The company closed its doors on Thursday amid rumours administrators were to be called in, leaving more than 50 staff without jobs before Christmas.

When Jeffrey Zemmel took over as managing director of Poole Pottery in August, as reported in the Daily Echo, he brought with him a criminal conviction for conspiracy and a five-year ban from managing a company, which only ended in March last year.

The company is also said to have defaulted on payments to landlord CEREP.

The "concession" arrange-ments meant retailers based in the Poole Quay premises, paid a percentage of their earnings to Poole Pottery Outlets in return for not paying rent and the company was supposed to pay them what they had earned after deductions.

QV Shoes was the first to pull out six weeks ago claiming they were owed £79,000 of unpaid earnings. Managing director Jim Ledger, said: "I came to the end of my tether because we were getting good turnover but weren't getting paid. We are still awaiting a judgement at the county court on December 18."

This week they were followed by Oneida. Its head of retail operations, Michael Tyson, said: "We have had problems with the new owners since they took over. We realised we could not work with them any longer so we pulled our stock on Tuesday. Unfortunately we had to make five people redundant in the process. I didn't realise they would be closing and I was surprised to hear it."

The company, which sells kitchen utensils, claims it is owed more than £10,000 by Poole Pottery Outlets and is planning to take legal action.

The concession manager for Fine Fragrances on the Poole Pottery premises was also left jobless after being forced to pull out, claiming Poole Pottery had failed to pay her company since October.

She said: "Everything we earn goes through their tills and we have to pay them 35 per cent of our income and they pay us the rest but they have not been giving us anything. They must owe us about £50,000.

"We do well with older visitors who come in on the coaches. Without the coaches there would be no Poole Pottery."

Poole Pottery Outlets also owes a six figure sum in rent, according to Daniel Chapman of CEREP, who say they may take legal action in the new year.

His said: "Obviously they still owe us money but we have also made concessions for them to move in to Dolphin Quays development in February.

"We allowed them to renegotiate part of the contract to take on a smaller space - 14,000 square ft compared to 17,000 square ft - otherwise they were threatening to fold.

"Our biggest concern is that the company fails to honour its commitment because we would have spent £600,000 on a site with no tenant."

Both Poole Pottery chairman Roy Simmons and their managing director Jeffrey Zemmel were unavailable for comment.