10:15 am, August 4, 2023
Jobs are to be lost after Barretts announced it will be closing its Citroen and DS showrooms in Canterbury.
The Car Dealer Top 100 firm hasn’t renewed its contract with Stellantis brand Citroen – after two decades of being with the manufacturer – and group MD Paul Barrett admitted the company was unhappy about the closures.
The Westminster Road sites will close on Friday, September 15 and there are no plans for them at the moment, according to KentOnline.
It quoted Barrett as saying: ‘We have not renewed our contract with Citroen, so will no longer be providing sales or aftersale services.
‘We have therefore taken the decision to close the business. It’s not a decision we are happy about.’
The two showrooms employ 21 people, and although Barretts hopes to find alternative work for them elsewhere within the company, ‘a small number of redundancies’ are inevitable, which Barrett said he regretted.
Barrett declined to comment on why the company hadn’t renewed its contract with Citroen, which owns the DS Automobiles luxury-premium marque.
In May, it was revealed that Barretts suffered a pre-tax profit slump of more than a fifth in 2022, while at the beginning of this year it announced that its showrooms would be closed on Sundays to give staff a better work-life balance.
Barretts has been family-owned and operated since 1902.
Main image via Google Street View shows Barretts’ Citroen and DS showrooms in Canterbury
