Curious rebirth upsets creditors

The recently re-started group Curious Design Partnership could face action from unpaid creditors of its previous incarnation, Curious Design Consultants, which went into liquidation in June.

Parker Stratton Design owner and former Curious Design Consultants director Terry Stratton relaunched Curious on 1 July, by buying the Curious name back from receivers. He then relaunched Parker Stratton as Curious Design Partnership.

Correct Impression and Bernard Neild Associates, unpaid creditors of Curious Design Consultants, plan to take the case to the Department of Trade and Industry to seek redress.

Fourteen suppliers, including Parker Stratton Design, were left short of almost £170 000 while Curious Design Consultant’s total debts were over £235 000. Correct Impression was owed £6345 for bread packaging mock-ups completed for the group leading to the closure of subsidiary Correct Impression Presentation.

“Only three months after the company went into liquidation it is up and running again,” says Correct Impression company secretary Barbara Bentley. “If the Curious directors had no money as per their creditors meeting at Goodman Jones Associates, where has the money come from to start up another company?”

“As a partnership we [Curious Design Partnership] have gained no benefit whatsoever from any of the work those people [Curious Design Consultants’ creditors] did,” says Stratton. He adds that he personally regrets the debts.

Stratton says the former limited company was forced into liquidation by debts from work for two former Curious clients. The clients were lost with the departure of former Curious co-director Derek Martin, who is said to have taken them with him to his new group Tomorrow Associates.