Boardman Performance Centre facing closure

Just two years after its launch, the Boardman Performance Centre (website) faces closure, unless a new buyer can be found to take over as a going concern.

In a formal statement to the London Stock Exchange today (HERE), the Halfords Group plc announced its ‘Proposed closure of Cycle Republic and Boardman Performance Centre’, following ‘a strategic review of the Group’s cycling businesses’.

From today we will launch a consultation process with the 226 colleagues affected by the proposal, with a view to mitigating redundancies where possible. We are also actively exploring opportunities to sell the sites as a going concern. Subject to the outcome of current negotiations and consultation, the stores are expected to close during the first half of FY21.

The closure of Cycle Republic is intended to allow further investment and focus on ‘the enthusiast cycling market’ through Tredz (www.tredz.co.uk), the online retaliler it purchased in 2016.

With investment in the Tredz business, alongside our core Halfords Retail cycling business, we believe we will be uniquely placed to serve both the enthusiast and the mainstream customer in a more economic way than we do today.

RELATED: INSIDE THE BOARDMAN PERFORMANCE CENTRE

Is there room in the market for the centre – with its flagship wind tunnel – to be purchased as a going concern? Based in Evesham, the BPC is just 50 miles away from the new Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub, with surely a significant crossover of services within a geographically close venue.

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Boardman Performance Centre Some of you might have heard the news today. So thought I’d put my thoughts down here. Whilst I’m obviously disappointed the Performance Centre isn’t going to form part of our strategy going forward, I do understand the immense pressure Halfords, along with other retailers, is under right now. Pioneering, worlds-first things like this take courage to back, and we need to remember Halfords showed leadership in enabling us to do something different and wonderful. This was a tough decision and I know it wasn’t taken lightly. It is my hope that we can find someone who is in a position to take the centre on as a going concern. It’s still an amazing place and most importantly, it has an amazing team. That’s what I will be striving for over the next few weeks. CB

A post shared by Chris boardman (@chris_boardmanbikes) on Mar 16, 2020 at 5:41am PDT

Graham Stapleton, CEO said:

“The Board has come to the difficult, but necessary, decision to propose the closure of Cycle Republic, our retail store-focussed performance cycling brand.

This proposal is not a reflection of the hard work of our Cycle Republic colleagues, who I would like to thank for their commitment and passion in serving our customers. We are now moving into a period of consultation with impacted colleagues with a view to mitigating as many redundancies as possible.

Going forward we propose to focus our investment and resources in Halfords and Tredz, through which we will deliver market-leading specialist propositions for both mainstream and enthusiast cyclists via a business model that improves our overall economics.”