Despite fighting back from a 70 per cent drop in orders last year, Ann Pinnington and her husband David Yates are still struggling to secure extra funding from their bank.

The couple, who run Hi-Mark in Wrexham, North Wales, making injection mouldings for the motor industry, have battled for months to secure a loan from HBOS, which is now part of Lloyds Banking Group. When the offer arrived, they realised that they would have to pay tens of thousands of pounds to cover fees and expenses that they had incurred trying to obtain the loan, and so would see only a fraction of the extra capital.

Ms Pinnington said: “When the Enterprise Finance Guarantee [EFG] was launched in February this year, we thought it would be a fantastic scheme for us. But after the cost of the independent review, our legal expenses, the bank’s legal expenses — as they insist on having new personal guarantees — as well as the bank’s arrangement fees and the Government’s fees, we realised we wouldn’t see at least a third of the extra £75,000, although we would still be paying interest on 100 per cent of the loan.”