City Link - Depot’s sellers ask for £6.75m

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A landmark depot in the Black Country was today on the market with a £6.75 million pricetag as bosses prepare to close down the operation in months.

Up to 600 workers face an uncertain future with the closure of City Link, in Darlaston, although managers say they will try to find jobs for them elsewhere.

But it is feared that most of the staff will lose their jobs when parent company Rentokil closes the gates in the summer and transfers work to a new national hub in Coventry.

For Sale notices went up last year, but details of the property were only released today. Property agents DTZ, in Birmingham, have been given the job of handling the sale, and says it is the largest site of its kind to come on the market for more than five years.

Darlaston is the biggest victim of a round of cuts that has seen Rentokil axe one in five City Link jobs.

Rentokil aims to cut City Link’s losses, which stood at £4.4m for the first three months of this year.

The company has been working to turn around City Link since the troubled £210 million takeover of Coventry-based Target Express in 2006 which turned into a customer relations disaster, with hundreds of customers abandoning the company amid allegations of poor service.

The Darlaston operation, on Owen Road and Midland Road, includes warehousing, offices, a vehicle maintenance unit, workshop and store on two neighbouring sites.

DTZ said that the freehold is for sale for £6.75 million and a new owner could take over the site this summer.