36 jobs axed at car firm

Thirty-six workers at a Renault car dealership in Stourbridge have been made redundant after it ceased trading, it emerged today.

Former workers collecting their belongings from Walker Renault in Norton Road this morning said they were told the news they had lost their jobs on Friday.

A Renault spokesman confirmed the garage ceased trading at the end of last week and today the unit was empty.

One worker told the Express & Star 36 staff had been told they were being made redundant at lunchtime on Friday.

Staff in the sales, service and parts departments all lost their jobs, the ex-employee said. Customers were being advised to go to Renault's Millrace Lane service centre for spares and parts.

The garage sold new and used Renault cars and vans and offered a free delivery service to anywhere in the UK but has seemingly become the latest victim of the tough economic climate.

A spokesman in the Renault press office told the Express & Star: "The business is not trading as of Friday but that is all I can tell you at the moment."

In 2001, the garage was ordered to stop storing cars in council-owned garages near sheltered homes for the elderly after it lost a planning appeal. The firm was given until the summer to remove its cars from garages next to the Baylie Court tower block close to the Stourbridge ring road.

Bosses had appealed against Dudley Council's refusal to renew planning permission for it to use the garages off Green Street, which it had been leasing from the council's housing department since July 1997.

The council's decision was upheld by the Department of the Environment following a public inquiry.

Walker Renault has previously played host to car crime prevention campaigns by West Midlands Police, particularly in the run-up to Christmas.