Tremont Garage MD's decision to close Ford dealership 'extremely difficult'

Tremont Garage’s managing director has cited “unprecedented events” for his decision to close his family-run Ford car dealership in Llandrindod Wells.

Around 20 jobs have been impacted by the closure - set to take effect on August 31 - and Richard Knill said that it was “extremely difficult” to admit that he would have to close the business that he had been involved in for more than 30 years.

The move follows Ford’s plan to cut the scale of its UK dealer network and the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

In an interview with the Powys County Times, Knill said that the most difficult part of the decision, by far, had been “knowing the impact this will have on my fantastic staff team and all my wonderful loyal customers all of who I owe so much”.

He said: “I have explored endless possibilities of how I could continue to maintain the levels of business that would be required to run a dealership of our size all in the hope that I could continue to offer a quality service to our customers at Tremont.

“Sadly... The only sensible business decision I able to reach is to close the business.”

Mon Motors has agreed to offer help to Tremont Garage customers in future.

The ‘Ford 2025 dealer plan’, revealed to its investor partners at a conference back in February, will result in the closure of almost half of its 400 UK franchised car retail sites.

A total of between 160 to 180 dealerships will be closed under the plan, which the brand said had been formed “in a spirit of partnership” with dealers and their investors to build a “stronger and more sustainably profitable Ford sales and servicing network for the future in the UK”.

In a statement issued to AM following the plan’s announcement, Ford said that implementation of the plan would work “for the mutual benefit of our businesses and for our commercial and passenger vehicle customers”, with Ford of Britain chairman and managing director, Andy Barratt insisting an interview with AM that there would be no Vauxhall-style mass termination of dealer contracts.

It is the largest cull of UK car retail sites to date and comes after AM exclusively revealed Vauxhall’s decision to axe one-in-three of its sites in March, 2018, and Honda’s plan to reduce its network by up to 55 of its 155 sites from March last year.