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John Charcol has axed 69 of its staff, including chief executive Ian Kennedy and finance director Nigel Ward.

The redundancies include staff from its offices in Birmingham, Guildford and Manchester, as well as its London office.

Mr Kennedy joined John Charcol in October 2006 replacing founder John Garfield who took up the position as executive chairman. He joined from Liverpool Victoria, where he was a director at the mutual.

Mr Garfield has rejoined the executive management team.

Mr Garfield and Charles Wishart, the two original founders of the business 34 years ago, as well as private equity mogul Jon Moulton, also a significant shareholder, have together provided a substantial increase in the working capital available to the business according to a spokesman.

They have acquired the interests of Advantage Capital who invested in the company when it was acquired from Bradford & Bingley in 2004.

Mr Garfield said: “The turbulent and tough times that the UK economy is now facing and the impact on the housing market in particular, will undoubtedly provide opportunities for companies that take the right actions now – and in the future – to ensure both survival and profitability. John Charcol will continue to take whatever actions are necessary to meet these objectives.”

Meanwhile mortgage approvals have fallen 14 per cent to 179,000 in May according to the Bank of England. The increase in total net lending to individuals in May was £5.4bn compared with £16.9bn a year ago.

The figures showed that the numbers of loans approved for house purchase were 42,000 compared to 58,000 the previous month; for remortgaging the figure in April was 100,000 and in May it stood at 90,000.

Nicholas Leeming, director of Propertyfinder website, said that mortgage approvals for house purchase have

fallen to about a third of the level a year ago because lenders are not being “fair”.

Mr Leeming said: “Housing transactions have seized up not because people do not want to move, but because the lenders will not play fair with mortgages.

“Rates have been jacked up and terms tightened to unaffordable levels. People are left with no option but to stay put and the slowdown in the housing market is spilling over to impact on other areas of the economy.”