A small business owner says he is facing homelessness after Covid-19 wrecked his company.

Simon Howell, who is 60 and lives in Colchester, had run Vision Getaways – a holiday company which organised day trips and vacations in the area.

Mr Howell started the business in 2015 having previously worked in the travel industry as a cruise director – but the pandemic saw sales plummet and he is now scrambling to reimburse as many customers as possible.

He said: “The business was badly affected by Covid because we obviously we couldn’t run any holidays throughout the pandemic.

“But people had already paid for their holidays, so we transferred them to this year – and that meant we had to use savings from last year to keep the business going.

“By the time this year came round, we didn’t have the money to pay for the holidays, and we went into liquidation last week.”

Although those who had booked a holiday via Vision Getaways can claim their money back, people who had booked day trips are not covered by insurance.

Aside from his own circumstances, Mr Howell stressed he felt immense regret customers are now having to organise insurance claims.

“The whole company has crumbled – I’m absolutely devastated because I’ve caused problems for a lot of people,” he said.

“People who booked holidays will get their money back – people who booked day trips won’t, but the bulk of the claims coming in are for holidays.”

On a personal level, Mr Howell said the death of his mother shortly before the business went under had a huge affect on him, adding he is extremely worried about the future.

“My accountant has told me we were in control until a couple of months ago, but I lost my mum and I took my eye off the ball – we could see that the business was going downhill.

“I know I’ve caused problems – I know I’m in the wrong and I know what’s happened is not fair.

“I’m a couple of months away from walking out of the door, shutting it, putting on as many clothes as I can put on and living in a cardboard box.”