Chichester Caravans Birmingham

[Parksy]

I drove past the Birmingham branch of Chichester Caravans on Hagley Road last night and was surprised to see empty space where the once busy sales forecourt traded.
Apparently the Birmingham branch has relocated and merged with nearby Bromsgrove, so Brummies hoping to have a browse close to home need to travel a bit further now.

 

[Jaydug]

Their branch at Salfords on the A23 close to Gatwick Airport has also recently become derelict. They must be in trouble.

 

[Gafferbill]

........l think they are cutting overheads by reducing the number of sites they have. They still have a large dealership at Uckfield not all that far from Salfords (Redhill).

 

[Mel]

Hello Parksy, welcome to the forum. You may be better posting this sort of topic in "general". Perhaps one of our Mods could move it for you.
B) :lol: :lol:
Mel

 

[Gagakev]

Hello Parksy, welcome to the forum. You may be better posting this sort of topic in "general". Perhaps one of our Mods could move it for you.
B) :lol: :lol:
Mel

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Excellent

 

[ProfJohnL]

Their branch at Salfords on the A23 close to Gatwick Airport has also recently become derelict. They must be in trouble.

Sorry I cant necessarily form the same conclusion. Many businesses have to consider restructuring to keep pace with changing markets. Merging dealerships is one way of reducing building over heads, and in the case of caravan dealers they can be quiet costly business rates associated with large sites and small number of sales.

If the majority of customers continue to use the business but at the alternative site, then there may not have been too many redundancies as some staff may well have moved over and the others retired.

 

[Parksy]

Hello Parksy, welcome to the forum. You may be better posting this sort of topic in "general". Perhaps one of our Mods could move it for you.
B) :lol: :lol:
Mel

I'll see if one is available :silly:
It was (for me) quite early after a fairly late night and I was distracted, not to mention ecstatic, by the seismic news about the you know what, that we won't mention here.

 

[Dustydog]

Steve
We were up at 5am enjoying the aftermath of 43 years of Junk.
A breath of fresh air :cheer:

 

[Parksy]

One of the better days Alan, and we celebrated in style by going out to order two new leather sofas for our lounge :cheer:

 

[GrahamE]

The Chichester site is still there, went past it on Friday on way out for the weekend, Now home...............depressed................got to go to work tomorrow...................don't even care about the you-know-what.

 

[HenryB1]

Shame about the Redhill site it was my nearest dealer and the staff were so helpful. I went in a couple of days after the staff had been told the site was being sold to a developer as the owners of Chichester Caravans had received an offer they could not refuse. The staff were very depressed as the newest member had been working there for 12 years.

 

[Raywood]

Given the level of caravan sales at the moment I would be surprised if any dealer was in serious trouble but you never know. If you have a site that could be used for housing though it is probably worth far more for that than as a caravan dealership and money talks.

 

[KeefySher]

Our Sterling Continental 570 is booked into Chichester Caravans, Nutbourne (Chichester) branch in a fortnight for its first service to meet the warranty conditions. I'll ask about the reasons for movements within the group and report back.

We ordered through CC at the NEC in 2014, the caravan was collected from the then Chichester Caravans site at Colden Common, near Winchester. CC were facing a lease renewal at the Colden Common site, that the family owners didn't wish to re-new so closed it as Chichester Caravans. The site, workshops and staff are now under the name of Winchester Caravans and led by James, who was previously at CC. James has continued the traditions and high standards of CC as WC and they have been superb with warranty issues and an electrical failure we suffered early in own ownership.

Unfortunately, since James set up a new company, although on the same site, with the same staff, the same tools and delivering caravans ordered from Swift under its various brand names whilst CC, although handed over by WC; Swift have refused to deal with WC and the 30 years of customers of the site, albeit a different company until they have been trading for 10 years. So we, the owners of Swift caravans bought from a then dealer who are the same people in the same place using the same tools have no support from Swift in the frequent event of problems with our caravans. We have had a few problems on the flagship caravan range from Swift. We have to travel an extra 100 miles round trip for service and warranty items purely due to the commercial decision made by Swift to leave us in the lurch with a dealer who gives super service.I know the legalities of contracts and companies, but I'm an individual personal buyer, not a company

Swift are doing the industry no favours by their idiotic behaviour. If Swifts quality control was befitting their flagship product and pricetag there might be some form of understanding from me, but in this case they exhibit crass stupidity. Whats the old expression, 'strong in the arm, thick in the head'.

Thankfully dealers like Winchester Caravans think beyond the current model year sales figures and earn their customers respect. So if you are looking for a new Bailey, Lunar or Venus caravan in the Hampshire area, James at Winchester Caravans is your man.

 

[KeefySher]

As promised, an update.

The 3 partners of Chichester Caravans have been looking toward their twilight career years and reduced the business to 1 location each. The Redhill site was the least busy of there and Uckfiled, so it went. Ask the question, get the answer

Fortunately in our case the Chichester site under CC, and the Winchester site now under Winchester Caravans provide excellent service throughout the purchase and continued ownership of our caravan.