LIQUIDATORS have been appointed to a scrapyard business which was the subject of ‘nuisance’ fires complaints.

TH Smith & Sons Ltd, which was based in Meadow Street, Great Harwood, has ceased trading and H Mistry and John H C Lee have been placed in charge of the firm’s affairs.

The announcement was made on the London Gazette website, the government’s official public record.

Last year hundreds of people in Great Harwood and Clayton-le-Moors filed complaints against the company’s owner after they said they were forced to deal with copious amounts of smoke coming from the yard over several months.

Notices were handed to the landowner several times from Hyndburn Council, police and fire services to put an end to the fires.

The council last year secured a warrant to visit the scrap metal site if fires on the property did not cease.

The liquidators, in a joint statement on the London Gazette’s website, said: “We hereby give notice that we have been duly appointed as joint liquidators of the estate of the above-named company.

“All persons having in their possession any of the effects of the company must deliver them to us and all debts due to the company must be paid to us.

“Creditors who have not yet proved their debts must forward their proof of debt to the liquidators.”

It comes as the company appeared in court recently accused of breaching environmental permit conditions.

Blackburn magistrates were told the business and Mary Louise Smith, of the same address, each face five charges.

The charges are failing to comply with a permit by accepting fridges, freezers and other waste electrical and electronic equipment; failing to submit information relating to waste accepted and removed from the site, failing to comply with an enforcement notice and two charges of contravening a permit.

TH Smith & Sons Ltd denied all the accusations at the recent hearing and the case was adjourned until Friday, March 31.

It will be heard by Burnley magistrates. Nobody from TH Smith & Sons Ltd were available for comment yesterday.