A one-page closure plan for the first serious meeting

Start with the proposed scope: which business activity and location are being considered, and what would continue. Identify the business or entities involved as accurately as the current records allow.

Next, state why the proposal is being discussed and the owner's practical constraints. Keep personal details relevant and proportionate. Then list the known dates, showing whether each is a target or a checked obligation.

Add the principal open questions. These may concern customer work, employees, premises, finances or authority. For each, identify who should investigate and which professional advice is needed.

Finish with the decisions requested from the meeting. Do not use a general request to "approve closure" where the actual authority or procedure remains uncertain.

A workshop owner wants to stop normal attendance later in the year. No successor is confirmed. Two customer jobs remain active, the premises agreement needs adviser review and the owner has not yet established the suitable formal closure route.

The meeting is asked to agree the fact-gathering work and who will coordinate it. In a small business, coordination can remain a limited owner task, provided the work has a clear routine and professional questions have somewhere to go. It is not asked to authorise immediate marketing of every asset. The distinction keeps an early planning conversation within its actual purpose.

Use the scope statement and the adviser sequence to develop the brief. Attach references to supporting records rather than filling the page with contract extracts or private information.

Give it to another authorised participant before the meeting. Ask what they believe is already decided and what they think the meeting must resolve. If their interpretation differs from yours, revise the wording.

At the meeting, turn agreed actions into named outputs. The meeting guide explains how to record a decision, a request for evidence or a referral for advice without blurring them together.

Keep the page dated. It can become the starting point for the working plan, but should not remain an unquestioned authority after facts change.

When an asset discussion is useful, adapt the relevant facts for UK Auction Group. Explain the equipment scope and planning stage, and state the question you want answered. The disposal enquiry then supports the closure decisions rather than silently becoming the closure plan itself.

Explore closure planning.