More than 800 jobs were lost yesterday - and another 800 are at risk - after the collapse of a major Scottish firm.

The Glasgow-based Bowie Castlebank Group, which includes dry cleaning and photo processing interests, has gone into administration, becoming Scotland's biggest casualty of the economic downturn so far.

Despite the heavy job losses in the company, which trades under the Klick Photopoint and Max Spielmann brand names and also owns William Munro Cleaners, there are no immediate plans to close any of the outlets.

A spokesman said the firm, which employs 1664 people across a network of 314 shops, a processing centre in Wishaw, head office in Glasgow and warehouse in Chester, would need to shed half of its staff - 817 in total - due to significant losses in both sides of the business in recent years.

He blamed the popularity of digital photography, as well as the fact that fewer clothes now require dry cleaning.

In Scotland, 207 of the company's 397 workers have been made redundant, including 103 at the Wishaw plant. Jobs will go in 59 of the company's 60 Scottish joint Klick/Munro shops.

The remainder of the job losses will be in Klick and Max Spielmann outlets in England and Wales. Last year the firm, which has its headquarters in Glasgow's Byres Road, had a turnover of £59.5m.

Administrators KPMG said Bowie Castlebank managers had made several unsuccessful attempts to restructure the business before the onset of the credit crunch. In January, the company announced it had narrowed losses and completed a "painful adjustment to the demands of the digital age".

Pre-tax losses fell from £13.1m in 2006 to £5.8m for the year ending March 2007.

Over the past few years Klick revamped its stores, focusing on selling digital cameras and offering value-added services such as customer advice and digital photo frames. In early 2007, finance director Mark Ross forecast that the company would reach profitability by early 2008.

Blair Nimmo, joint administrator and head of restructuring for KPMG, said they were now seeking new owners for the stores.

He added: "It is with regret that we have had to make substantial redundancies across Bowie Castlebank's operations and we are currently working with government agencies to ensure the employees' issues are dealt with as quickly as possible.

"At the same time, we are marketing the business in an attempt to secure a sale of some of the group's stores or operations as a going concern."

Customers with films at Klick for development or clothes with Munro to be cleaned were urged to visit their local stores as soon as possible.

The latest jobs blow comes the week after Woolworths and MFI both went into administration. Earlier this year, home furnishing brand Rosebys also went bust.

Garry Clark, head of policy at the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said: "The loss of this well-known high street name really brings home the scale of the problem many businesses are facing up and down the country."

Meanwhile, the BBC is facing more than 70 job cuts in Scotland, it was confirmed last night.

Just under a year ago the corporation announced a five-year plan involving around 230 job losses, and a spokesman for the BBC said the latest cuts were the next phase of that process.

Twenty of the cuts are in news, 36 are in production and the rest are in management and other areas.

"The unions have been given notice on the next phase, but we hope that these will be dealt with by voluntary redundancies and redeployment," said a BBC spokesman.

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