Two divisions of a sofa manufacturing group, Westbridge Furniture and Belfield Leisure, have both appointed administrators.
Chris Pole and Will Wright from Interpath were appointed joint administrators to Westbridge Furniture Limited and Belfield Leisure Limited on 23 March 2026. Both Companies are part of The Belfield Group. This follows the news of its intention to appoint administrators – see related.
Westbridge is a furniture designer and manufacturer, supplying sofas and other upholstery to a number of blue-chip high street and premium independent retailers. The Company employs circa 300 people at its base in Holywell, Flintshire.
Headquartered in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, and employing circa 200 members of staff, Belfield Leisure is a market-leading manufacturer and supplier of soft furnishings to the UK leisure market.
The Companies were incorporated in February 2025 when the business and assets of Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited and Belfield Furnishings Limited were acquired alongside other trading entities of The Belfield Group Limited, via a pre-pack transaction.
Following the acquisition, Westbridge suffered operational disruption which had a greater impact on the business than originally anticipated. This, combined with the loss of a key customer and weak trading in early 2025 placed significant pressure on cashflow.
Separately, the trading performance of Belfield Leisure was impacted by fragile consumer confidence impacting the wider UK leisure market. This frustrated the business’ ability to return to a breakeven position, despite significant cost savings being made and a regaining of market share. As a result, Belfield also required a capital injection to manage short-term cash requirements.
In response to these challenges, the directors of the businesses undertook an exploration of their investment and refinancing options. However, when a solvent solution could not be found, they took the difficult decision to seek the appointment of the administrators.
The joint administrators will continue to trade the businesses, working through certain orders in progress, while they explore options for a sale of the businesses and their assets. The majority of the Companies’ employees will be retained to assist the administrators during this period; however, regrettably, there have been a limited number of redundancies across both businesses.
Chris Pole, managing director at Interpath and joint administrator, said: “It’s been a challenging time for furniture manufacturers and retailers. Following a spike in demand during Covid-19, a period of falling sales, high interest rates, and inflation, have piled on the pressure for companies up and down the supply chain.
“While both Westbridge and Belfield Leisure had made positive progress on their respective turnaround journeys, both companies required further injections of capital. Unfortunately, and despite the best efforts of management to secure funding, this has not been possible, which has sadly resulted in the Companies going into administration.”
Chris Pole continued: “As we start to explore options for both businesses, our immediate intention is to trade the Belfield Leisure business as a going concern, as well as maintaining operations at Westbridge for a period as we fulfil work already in progress. We’d invite any parties who may be interested in acquiring the businesses and their assets to contact us at the earliest opportunity.”
For the avoidance of doubt, other companies in The Belfield Group, namely Tetrad Furniture Limited and Clinchplain Foam and Fibre Limited are not in administration and continue to trade as normal.
