Cowie cuts rental sites
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• Cowie Interleasing is disposing of more than half of its eight commercial vehicle rental depots. At least 14 staff have been made redundant and more jobs are likely to go.
Cowie stopped truck rental at its Bristol and Cheltenham sites the week before Christmas. About 100 trucks from Bristol have been relocated to the Kidderminster branch, which is to be kept open, along with West Bromwich and Stoke-on-Trent. Bristol manager Lyn Harley says that business has "not been bad as far as we were concerned."
At Cheltenham, which ran about 50 CVs, "business was booming", according to supervisor Shirley Brownsmith. "We had been fully booked for at least 10 weeks."
The fate of two further sites, at Manchester and Wolverhampton, is still in the balance. Vehicle rental company TLS, which is based in Eccles, is believed to be talking to Cowie about buying the two businesses. TLS finance director Rob Swire agreed it was too early to talk about negotiations.
The fifth rental depot, at Sunderland, is to be merged with Cowie's Sunderland Iveco Ford dealership, part of the Cowie truck division.
Cowie Interleasing slashed its truck rental fleet by about 300 vehicles last year.
Neither the parent company, the Cowie Group, nor Cowie Interleasing would make any comment as Commercial Motor went to press.