A Shotts businessman who once ran an NHS waste contractor has been barred from company management until 2035. Garry Pettigrew was disqualified for nine years after the Court of Session ruled on Thursday 20 August 2026 that he had shifted almost £3 million of assets out of Healthcare Environmental Services Limited as major NHS work was falling away. The Insolvency Service said those moves put assets beyond the reach of creditors. (gov.uk) This lands close to home in North Lanarkshire. What sits behind the court order is not just a director ban, but a long-running collapse that ended with jobs going just after Christmas 2018, a company sinking into liquidation, and creditors left to sort through the wreckage years later. (gov.uk)

Healthcare Environmental Services was the waste disposal company that serviced the NHS. According to the Insolvency Service, Pettigrew began moving equipment out of the business just days before the firm lost 17 NHS England contracts in October 2018. Further NHS contracts were then terminated in December 2018. (gov.uk) Those contract losses came after Pettigrew attended a September 2018 meeting with NHS and government officials over allegations that waste had been stockpiled in breach of Environment Agency permits. The criminal proceedings later brought in Scotland over alleged illegal medical waste storage were dropped in October 2023, but the director disqualification case continued on its own footing. (gov.uk)

Between October and December 2018, the Insolvency Service says Pettigrew caused assets worth £2,979,383 to be transferred from Healthcare Environmental Services Limited to HEG Sustainable Solutions Limited and Starryshaw Consultants Ltd. Officials said both were connected companies and that, at the time, Pettigrew and his wife were the only directors. (gov.uk) The official case says those transfers went ahead without the consent of the company’s bank, even though the bank held a charge over all the firm’s assets. The Insolvency Service also said Pettigrew had been advised by accountants and solicitors that consent was needed. For creditors, that detail sits at the centre of why the court treated the conduct so seriously. (gov.uk)

An attempted sale of the company collapsed in December 2018, trading stopped, and all staff were made redundant. A separate Insolvency Service notice for former employees says the redundancies took effect on 27 December 2018, turning what might have looked like a boardroom dispute into a hard local jobs story as well. (gov.uk) Healthcare Environmental Services then entered liquidation on 25 April 2019. The company owed more than £15 million, and Companies House records still show it in liquidation. For former staff, suppliers and creditors around Shotts and beyond, that is the financial mess left behind. (gov.uk)

In his judgement, Lord Lake said Pettigrew was in 'flagrant' breach of his duties as a director and placed the conduct at the top end of the middle bracket before deciding that a nine-year ban was appropriate. The order means Pettigrew cannot promote, form or manage a company without the court’s permission. (gov.uk) The Insolvency Service put the point plainly: directors cannot move valuable assets to related firms while knowing key contracts are going or gone. For public bodies and private contractors alike, especially in regions where one big contract can underpin a business, that is the governance lesson running through this case. (gov.uk)

The case also has a longer legal trail. On 6 August 2021, co-director Alison Pettigrew accepted a 3.5-year disqualification undertaking for allowing the asset transfers to take place. In a separate matter, Garry Pettigrew was fined £1,000 and costs in June 2025 after a court found him in contempt over photographs of witnesses and related social media posts. (gov.uk) That separate contempt case matters because it should not be muddled with the director ban itself. The Scottish criminal proceedings over alleged illegal medical waste storage were dropped in October 2023, while this week’s disqualification rests on findings about director conduct and asset transfers as the business was failing. (gov.uk)

What lingers now is a simple question for readers in any town built around a handful of employers: who carries the cost when a contractor tied to essential services falls apart? In this case, NHS contracts fell away, staff lost their jobs, and creditors were left chasing what remained after assets had been moved out. (gov.uk) The Insolvency Service said it hopes the ban warns directors not to 'put their own interests first' when insolvency is looming. From Shotts to any part of the UK where public services depend on private contractors doing the right thing when the pressure comes on, that warning will be heard loudly enough. (gov.uk)