Former Crawley restaurant’s unpaid six-figure debt written off by council

Ask Italian, which had been a High Street favourite based in the 15th century Ancient Priors, closed in 2020 after the pandemic brought business to a ‘standstill’.

A report to a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday (February 2), said Ask’s operator, Azzurri Restaurants Ltd, owed the council £126,540.02.

But, as the company was sold out of administration to another firm, there was no way to recover the debt.

Leader Peter Lamb said: “The purpose of removing irrecoverable debts from our accounts is that, if you believe money is coming in, you take financial decisions on the assumption that you have that money.

“We should not have any money on our books that we are unlikely to recover.”

Mr Lamb said the council pursued unpaid debts ‘as far as we possibly can’, often taking people to court to retrieve the money.

But he added: “This is slightly different in that Ask essentially went bankrupt and, while another company has bought up a number of their assets, essentially there is no-one for us to try to get this money back from.

“Much as we would like to recover it there’s no legal recourse to do so.

“It’s an unfortunate factor of a company going under and we’re left really without a choice other than to strike it off our accounts.”

Other debts totalling £4,405.13 have been written off during 2021/22 – £3,564.75 in council tax and £840.38 in housing rent.