A TRAVEL company in the county has gone into administration, leaving thousands of Christmas holidaymakers stranded.

Travelscope, based in Brockworth, announced it had gone into administration last Friday.

More than 10,000 holidays booked for the Christmas and New Year period have now been cancelled, along with 30,000 holidays already booked for next year.

Richard Ford founded the firm in Stonehouse in 1992 and it was considered one of the biggest tour operators in the country, with an estimated annual turnover of £75 million.

However, Travelscope had started to experience problems which included a cancelled cruise, legal action after a Cheltenham woman died on a cruise earlier this year and a delay in moving into the Brockworth headquarters.

Mr Ford said that he had held the administrators off until staff had received their December wages.

So far there have been no redundancies but all 270 jobs at the travel company are at risk.

The Travelscope administrators are currently contacting anyone who has booked to travel with the company.

The firm's administrators are Paul Clark, Andrew Stoneman and Phil Duffy, of Menzies Corporate Restructuring.

Anyone wishing to contact the administrators should call 020 74877240 or email travelscope@menzies.co.uk.