A TOTAL of 26 jobs have been lost across Worcestershire and Herefordshire following the collapse of Unipart Automotive Ltd, , one of the UK’s largest independent suppliers of car parts, workshop consumables and garage equipment.

KPMG has been appointed administrators of the firm, which was headquartered in Solihull, and managed to sell 33 of its 180 branches to new investors. The remaining will close, including the Worcester depot in Carden Street, causing eight redundancies, Hereford (nine redundancies), Kidderminster (five) and Redditch (four).

Mark Orton, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “Despite intensive efforts over recent weeks, a sale of the whole Unipart Automotive business could not be reached, and a buyer could only be found for 33 of the sites on a going concern basis. Unfortunately, the business had been experiencing financial stress for a number of years, so the level of cash and further operational restructuring required to rescue a more substantial part of the business posed too much risk for most interested parties. Our team of employment specialists will be supporting all staff on completing redundancy forms and putting them in touch with job seeker services. "

Nationally Unipart had a total staff of 1813 and of these 1244 have lost their jobs.