A PROMINENT town business is to close as bosses at Vauxhall dealer network Pentagon decide to put the brakes on their long-established Ashbourne branch.
Closure of the Derby Road forecourt, showroom and service centre, which has been trading in Ashbourne since 1998, coincides with the end of the firm’s lease and investments in other nearby sites.
A spokesman for the company has told the News Telegraph that they trying to avoid making the site’s six employees redundant and explained its existing customers will be offered collection and return services from other nearby branches.
Marketing director James Reeve said: “Recent investment in our Vauxhall dealerships at Burton on Trent and Derby, together with the fact that the lease on the building expires this year, means that we have unfortunately taken the decision to close our Ashbourne Vauxhall business at the end of March 2012.
“We will continue to try and seek alternative employment in the group for the existing six employees to avoid redundancies wherever possible.
“We will continue to service our customers cars from our Derby and Burton on Trent dealerships, with a convenient collection and return service from our customers’ homes or places of work and we also have courtesy cars available.” Pentagon has 15 other UK branches and, while it predominantly deals with Vauxhall, it also deals in other makes including Subaru, — which has also been on sale at its Ashbourne base since 2010 — Peugeot, Seat, Nissan and Citroen.
Established in 1991 the company was initially a franchisee for Vauxhall and the family-owned firm grew quickly. After a buyout from Vauxhall, it began looking for a site in Ashbourne, which the firm saw as an “open point” during its expansion into the Derby area.
Once it had settled on its Derby Road site, work began on a £250,000 refurbishment that was completed in 1998. At the same time a Burton- on-Trent branch was established along with two new sites in Oldham and a new group head quarters in Derby.
