NEWLY-appointed administrators for the ill-fated Jarvis group have sprung into action, launching an investigation into what can be salvaged from the York-based maintenance and freight group.

Jarvis collapsed on Thursday when its bank lenders declared that enough was enough – and now 2,000 jobs are at risk, including about 350 in York.

Many workers, particularly in the RMT Union, are anxious about whether they will be paid for continuing to work and they will be seeking assurances from the new temporary masters of the company.

Nick Edwards, Neville Kahn, Phil Bowers and Ian Brown, partners in Deloitte, have been appointed as joint administrators of Jarvis Plc and its subsidiary Jarvis Accommodation Services Ltd, called in by the company’s directors.

In a statement they said: “The administrators are in the process of performing a rapid assessment of the financial position of the companies, and starting discussions with key stakeholders in order to formulate a strategy to stabilise the business.”

Nick Edwards said: “Our immediate priority will be to work with stakeholders to stabilise the business while we identify which parts of the business we can continue to trade and seek buyers for as going concerns.”

The Jarvis Board, led by Steven Norris, the former Conservative Transport Minister, blamed economic conditions generally and in particular “very considerable reductions in rail and plant work volumes”.

The group was hit hard by Network Rail’s decision last year to defer and then cut back its five year track renewal programme by 30 per cent. It triggered a Jarvis restructuring plan which cost 450 jobs nationally, 50 of them in York.

It has emerged that The Bank of Ireland and the Bank of America which had loaned the company £15 million pulled the plug in the belief that the taxman was about to foreclose on a debt of £3.2 million.

A Bank of Ireland spokeswoman said: “We don’t talk about individual customers or our dealings with them.”