Tile Giant boss blames 'catastrophic' Budget for store closures, job losses and administration move

He said it was a key factor in a Leeds-based arm of the business, Stiled Holdings, being placed into administration last month. The business was immediately sold to an associated company called Stiled Investments, with nine loss-making stores closed and 24 redundancies made.

Mr Williams said the agreement prevented dozens of further shop closures and saved over 200 jobs.

In recent years, Stiled Holdings has taken over shops from Tile Giant, Tile Choice and CTD Tiles after they had each entered administration.

Mr Williams said: “The Budget was a real turning point for the tile industry and particularly for us. We were on this quest to turn the fortunes around of the stores we had, at that stage about 61 or 62 across the business.

"Basically the Budget had an effect on consumer confidence with rising taxes and signposts of continued increases in taxes which impinged on disposable income.

"People don’t need to buy tiles to survive, it is completely discretionary and very dependent on consumer confidence. The Budget hit consumer confidence very hard. But also the announced increases to National Insurance also meant the hurdle to turn these stores around kicked up another level.

"If we did nothing else, we would have had another £500,000 of employment costs from April. That combined with a very tough market meant we had to take the very difficult decision to save as much of the business as we could and therefore we put Stiled Holdings through an administration process.”

He said the group is now down to 44 stores and said it is a “very regrettable situation”.

Trade creditors and HMRC are currently owed over £5m by Stiled Holdings and are not expected to get the majority of what they are owed back.

Mr Williams said: “We’re very sorry about it but we are doing our best to salvage jobs and to keep a business that can continue to employ people.”

A report by administrators Azets said Stiled Holdings had made a £3.3m net trading loss between April and October last year. The report said administrators had been approached in January this year due to “cashflow difficulties”, leading to three offers being made for parts of the business and a decision that a pre-pack sale would provide the best outcome for creditors.

The report said it is currently estimated there will be a £7.5m deficit between realisable assets and what is owed to different parties.

Stiled Investments is paying £1.1m for the sale and has taken on £1.5m in trading liabilities and £322,000 in customer orders from its sister company.

Mr Williams added: “The Budget for us as a business was catastrophic. It impacted the demand for our products and increased our cost profile significantly at the same time because we are a bricks and mortar retailer.

"We are about employing people and selling wonderful products to people who need to feel confident about the way the country is moving and their financial situation is moving in.”