Designscape Bearsted wound up owing HMRC £128,393

Designscape Consultancy Ltd, the architecture and urban design practice registered at 1a The Landway in Bearsted, has been wound up owing HM Revenue and Customs £128,393.18, according to the statement of affairs filed at Companies House on 24 July.

The company’s members passed an extraordinary resolution to wind it up on 9 July 2026 and appointed Danny Allen of 360 Insolvency Limited, based at the Joiner’s Shop on the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, as liquidator. Two notices in The Gazette, the official public record, published on 16 July, record the resolution and the appointment. This is a creditors’ voluntary liquidation, the route an insolvent company takes when it winds itself up rather than being wound up by a court.

The company was incorporated on 29 December 2004 and registered for urban planning and landscape architectural activities. Its registered office moved from 1a The Landway to the liquidator’s Chatham address on 24 July. Its website at designscapeconsultancy.co.uk no longer resolves to a site: on 10 August it returned a Wix “connect your domain” error page.

Three creditors, and one of them is HMRC

The statement of affairs, made up to 30 June 2026 and signed by director Kingsley John Hughes, lists three creditors owed £128,896.82 between them. HMRC accounts for £128,393.18 of that, or 99.6 per cent. The other two are Sothertons Limited of Netley Close, Maidstone, owed £240, and The Computer People Ltd of New Romney, owed £263.64.

Against that, the director’s estimate puts the assets available at £80,502.90. The single largest item is not equipment or work in hand but £76,000 recorded as a directors’ loan account, money owed back to the company by its directors, which the liquidator can pursue. Work in progress is put at £4,500 and the cash at bank at £2.90. Office furniture and equipment carries a book value of £3,051.89 but its realisable value is marked “uncertain”, as is goodwill and intellectual property.

That leaves an estimated total deficiency of £48,493.92. Put plainly, even if the liquidator collects the whole £76,000 from the directors’ loan account, the record still shows HMRC short by £47,890.28.

HMRC’s claim is recorded as secondary preferential. Since 1 December 2020, under section 98 of the Finance Act 2020, VAT and the taxes a business deducts from other people’s money, PAYE and employee national insurance among them, rank ahead of floating charge holders and ordinary unsecured creditors in an insolvency. It is why a tax debt of this size sits at the top of the list rather than sharing what is left with everyone else.

A new company at the same address

On 10 July, the day after the winding-up resolution, a further notice appeared in The Gazette. Kingsley John Hughes and Alexandra Lansley Wallace Taylor Hughes, both of 1a The Landway, gave notice that they intend to act as directors of Designscape Consultants Limited, trading as Designscape Consultants and Designscape Architecture, at the same Bearsted address.

That company, number 17253086, was incorporated on 1 June 2026, five weeks before the old one was wound up, and the register shows it as active and registered for architectural activities. Its first accounts are not due until 1 March 2028.

The notice is not an admission of anything. It is a legal requirement. Under section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986, a director of a company that goes into insolvent liquidation commits a criminal offence if, for the next five years, they run a business under the old company’s name or one so similar as to suggest a connection, unless the court gives permission or one of the excepted cases applies. The first of those exceptions, rule 22.4 of the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016, allows the reuse of the name if the director publishes exactly this kind of notice. Giving it is what makes carrying on under the Designscape name lawful.

Nothing in the notices or the filings is a finding of wrongdoing, and the figures above are the director’s own estimates as filed, not audited numbers. The liquidator’s investigation into the company’s affairs is a standard part of every liquidation and its conclusions are not yet on the register. The directors have published no statement beyond the Gazette notice.

What it means for you

If you had a live project with the practice, check which company your paperwork names. Any contract signed with Designscape Consultancy Ltd, company number 05322010, is now a matter for the liquidator: 360 Insolvency Limited can be reached on 01634 475546 or at info@360insolvency.co.uk. Worth knowing before you worry: the statement of affairs lists no customer deposits among the creditors, so the record does not show householders out of pocket. If you believe you are owed money and are not on that list of three, tell the liquidator, because claims are only counted once they are lodged.

Anything you sign from here is with Designscape Consultants Limited, company number 17253086, a separate legal entity ten weeks old with no filed accounts. That is not a reason to avoid it, and the law expressly allows it, but do read the company name and number on your letter of engagement rather than assuming continuity, and think about how you stage payments on a long job.

If the practice was acting as your agent on a planning application to Maidstone Borough Council, the agent’s details held on your case may need updating, and you can check where your application stands on the borough’s planning register. Suppliers and subcontractors owed money are unsecured creditors and should send their claim to 360 Insolvency. It is the second Maidstone-area business to reach the insolvency register in a fortnight, after The Stone Tile Warehouse at Langley called a creditors’ meeting for 12 August.