Groupe Renault UK has highlighted the success of Mitchells of Lowestoft, Renault Retail Group in Swansea and Mackie Motors in Brechin at its Dealers of the Year 2020 awards event.

Hosted as part of the French carmaker’s annual dealer conference, which was held yesterday (December 18) at Manchester’s Central Convention Complex, the awards also recognised long-standing franchised partners and newcomers to the network.

Vincent Tourette, managing director of Groupe Renault UK, and Louise O’Sullivan, network operations director, handed out a series of awards on the night.

The Renault UK dealer of the year awards determined its three winners by evaluating each dealership in its network of nearly 150 on criteria that spanned customer satisfaction and vehicle sales to overall profit and after sales turnover.

Mitchells of Lowestoft claimed the Gold Award, while Renault Retail Group Swansea and Mackie Motors in Brechin claimed the Silver and Bronze awards.

Tourette said: “Our Dealer of the Year winners and Partnership Award recipients can feel very proud of their achievements, especially in the face of what have recently been very challenging trading conditions.

“Their success underlines their unwavering commitment both to customers and to the brand, and their support has made a significant contribution to Groupe Renault UK being on track to deliver our ambitious ‘Drive The Future’ mid-term plan.”

Partnership awards were handed out to dealerships that have either partnered with the brand for an exceptional number of years, or recently joined as a Groupe Renault UK franchise.

The dealerships that were honoured with a Partnership Award for their longstanding service were: City Motors, Bristol; S.J.Cook, Bristol; A.K.S. Yeovil; and Bells of Crossgar.

The new dealers to the Groupe Renault UK network who were also recognised on the night were Startins, Worcester and recent AM interviewees Cars2 Ltd, Barnsley.

Tourette added: “It’s important to acknowledge the support of our dealers and with their expertise, experience and vision, plus the imminent launch of many new models building on the recent introduction of All-New Clio, All-New Captur and new versions of Zoe, Trafic and Master, the UK’s car and van buyers will find that our dealer network has even more to offer in 2020.”

Speaking to AM back in October, Tourette revealed that Renault UK is considering plans to restructure its dealer network in a ‘hub and spoke’ model to better meet the needs of its customers.

He said that this would see the country divided into 60 to 65 territories and Renault working with a partner in each one to tailor the network to their needs.

The French brand has insisted that it is not looking to reduce the size of its 144-site network, however.