Future of Corby's Gefco site up in the air as company 'considers its options'

Some members of staff are already seeking work elsewhere
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The future of Corby's GEFCO site appears to be hanging in the balance after bosses said they were considering the future of the operations there.

Some staff told the Northants Telegraph they have begun to look for alternative employment after closure rumours swirled at the huge car logistics site in Geddington Road.

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GEFCO are thought to have been in the town for around two decades. They run a massive operation importing cars via train from France to Corby where they check them and send them on to fleet, manufacturing and rental customers. There are also thousands of cars stored at the 43-acre site.

The huge site stretches for 43 acresThe huge site stretches for 43 acres
The huge site stretches for 43 acres

In May the site was sold to an un-named firm by landlords AEW UK REIT, a London-based acquisitions company, for a staggering £18.8m - £6m more than the company had paid for it two years previously. The site is fully-let to GEFCO for an annual rent thought to be £1.32m but that lease expires next summer.

One worker told the Northants Telegraph that staff had been told that the site was going to close before February 2021 and so many workers were already seeking alternative employment. GEFCO would not confirm the rumour.

In September the firm suffered a major cyberattack which it said was designed to disrupt its business. Chief Executive Luc Nadal said that GEFCO had weathered many storms in its 70 year history and that the organisation was 'resilient and robust'.

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GEFCO bosses today said that the decision to consider the future of the Corby operation was totally unrelated to that cyberattack.

The future of the GEFCO Corby site is uncertainThe future of the GEFCO Corby site is uncertain
The future of the GEFCO Corby site is uncertain

A GEFCO spokesman said: “We are currently considering a range of options in relation to our operations in Corby, driven by the ongoing diversification of our business as well as our customer needs.

"Due to the confidential nature of those discussions we are unable to comment any further at this present time.”

In April Gefco announced a two per cent increase in revenues despite 'challenging conditions'. Their annual turnover is 4.7 billion Euros and they employ 15,000 employees in 47 countries. In 2018 they announced a significant investment at the Corby site after increasing its capacity from 12,000 to 21,000 in just a year.

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Corby has been at the centre of a huge rise in vehicle logistics over the past few years, with a hugely successful operation at BCM, also in Geddington Road, and one of the biggest sites in the country at the former Rockingham Speedway, run by the Rockingham Group. The company, based at the former racetrack, said that during lockdown it had experienced a huge surge in enquiries from companies that needed short-term storage for their rental cars that were standing idle. When it is complete in March next year it will have capacity for 50,000 cars.