A building firm which had wealthy businessman Peter Barrett as a director has gone into receivership owing creditors £300,000.

Now contractors fear they will be unable to recover debts from Barrett Construction, of Upper Campsfield Road, Woodstock.

And they are angry that three contracts have been transferred from Barrett Construction to Cherwell Homes, a company of which Mr Barrett remains a director.

Father-of-two Mr Barrett, 41, who lives in a luxury detached home in Mill Street, Kidlington, has been threatened in the wake of the company collapse and has sought extra security.

He said: "There was a situation when it first went into receivership I had to be a bit careful because we had some really bad threats. Some people that say they are owed money have made threats on my life.

"The police have been informed. I have got some friends that have helped me out."

Evidence obtained by the Oxford Mail suggests Barrett Construction owes one creditor £124,000, together with a catalogue of smaller debts. But creditors will have difficulty reclaiming their debts for work carried out under contract for Barrett Construction. Nor will they be able to recoup the debts from Cherwell Homes, which trades as an entirely separate company.

Mark Oliver, contract manager for Oxford Electrical, said his firm was owed thousands of pounds.

"We have done work for Barrett and they owe us quite a substantial amount of money. With Barrett's going into administrative receivership, it is unlikely we are going to get our money.

"We were distraught because being a fairly small company it is a substantial loss for us. It could have put us in a bankruptcy situation. Luckily it has not done.

"There are a lot of smaller concerns apart from ourselves that are in a similar position."

Graham Cousin, managing director of RT Harris and Son at Shotover, Headington, told the Oxford Mail: "Barrett Construction has acted as a bank that has our money and it was never paid out." His chairman, Bob Harris, said the firm was owed £36,000. He added: "One of things that really upsets us is that these directors can walk away from the company and gain from it by picking up the contracts under another company."

Brian Habberfield, county chairman of the Electrical Contractors Association, said: "A number of our members have lost quite considerable sums of money through the recent administrative receivership at Barrett Construction. "We will not get paid out of the new company, Cherwell Homes, because it is a different company. We are not happy. This goes on all the time. This one has affected us more than most in this area because there are at least five major companies that have been involved with it."

Finance director David Lightowler, of Shafer in Newbury, said it was owed £124,000. Building material suppliers and a host of other traders are also owed by Barrett's - which has nothing to do with the national developers Barratt. Administrative receivers at BDO Stoy Hayward, in Reading, were appointed by Midland Bank on June 19 to establish the viability of the business.

But Mr Barrett claims he has also lost out. He said around £350,000 had been injected into Barrett Construction under his own name and that of Cherwell Homes in an attempt to bolster it. He said he was unlikely to get his money back and put the company's failure down to bad debts and increasing labour costs.

"It got to the point where the bank was not prepared to loan any more money," he said.

He believes the administrative receivers will seek to wind up Barrett Construction. A total of 30 staff have already lost their jobs and co-director Alan Perkins is no longer at the company.

Meanwhile, the Electrical Contractors Association wants the law changed. They are unhappy that companies can go into receivership and have contracts transferred to another company under the same owner.

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