One the North-West’s largest estate agency groups, Farrell Heyworth, has denied rumours that its branch network – which closed on March 23rd – will not fully reopen.

Today the company is opening seven ‘hub’ branches to serve their area of operation which stretches from north west of Manchester up to Barrow in Furness.

The opening branches are: Morecambe, Lancaster, Garstang, Fulwood, Cleveleys, Chorley and Barrow.

The group has 18 branches in total and the fate of the remaining unopened branches is not clear though the company says that it will continue to review their reopening ‘as the crisis develops’.

The company has admitted that ‘a small number’ of employees have been through a redundancy consultation process and have lost their jobs.

The company declined to reveal the exact numbers of staff who have been made redundant.

Jeremy Collins, a director of the company, gave EYE this statement:

As of 23rd March Farrell Heyworth closed all branches as required by government.

During lockdown we have worked hard to continue to provide an exceptional service for our clients, adhering to government guidelines throughout, with a combination of homeworking and using virtual services, making the health and welfare of clients and staff our priority.

We were pleased to re-open the doors to our branches on Monday 15th June, operating from 7 key hub branches servicing all 18 of our markets.

As this crisis develops we will continue to review the re-opening of our remaining branches, with the welfare of clients and staff at the forefront of any decisions.

In these unprecedented times we have been grateful for government support and will continue to responsibly access support schemes to retain as many staff as possible, dependent on customer demand.

We have completed a consultation process with a small number of employees and as a result a few roles have now been rendered redundant.

We continue to review the market circumstances, it would be inappropriate to comment any further.

We are grateful to our hard working and dedicated staff throughout this period.

As an independent agent for the last 30 years it is our intention to navigate this crisis and continue to be one of the North West’s premier property groups.