Hawkins Motor Group’s St Austell Peugeot operation has been hailed as the French car brand’s top performing UK dealer at its annual Guild of Gold Lion programme awards.

The top 25 performers from the PSA Group brand’s 183-strong UK franchised dealer network were recognised at an awards ceremony at The Grove Hotel, in Hertfordshire, last weekend, alongside its  top 25 sales managers, aftersales managers and top 10 best performing Business Centres.

Hosted by impressionist and comedian John Culshaw, the awards saw retailers from the South West emerge at the top of the rankings with many of the top performing sites and staff found in Barnstaple, Exeter, St Austell, and Launceston.

While Hawkins’ St Austell branch, which hosted its first-ever Peugeot Fest event in September 2019, claimed the title of top performing retailer, Arbury Group’s Bromsgrove operation was the top performing Business Centre and Gavin Matthews of Truscotts Barnstaple took home the Sales Manager award.

Hayley Elliott, of Halliday’s of Bushmills, was awarded the Aftersales Manager trophy in the Aftersales League, meanwhile.

David Peel, the managing director of Peugeot UK, said: “Last year was another tough year for the UK new car market, but Peugeot continued to buck the declining trend.

“This success is down to the excellent staff we employ throughout the Network, and our Guild of Gold Lion programme has been established to recognise the wide berth of talent working at Peugeot.

“This year’s winners all exceeded our expectations and continued to set a positive example to their colleagues.”

In 2019 Peugeot UK outperformed the market by posting a 0.24% decline in registrations, from 81,043 in 2018 to 80,851.

So far this year the brand has generated a volume increase of 2.43% to 25,242 (March YTD 2019: 24,643) ahead of the arrival of its new range of electric vehicles (EV) to the UK market.

The coming weeks will bring the arrival of the new e-208 and e-2008 EVs, along with plug-in hybrid (PHEV) variants of the 3008 SUV and 508.

Peugeot’s parent company, the PSA Group, was named Manufacturer of the Year at last month’s AM Awards 2020.