Vauxhall Motors and Opel Ireland will soon have a new managing director from within the PSA Group following the departure of Rory Harvey.

A statement issued by the brands said that the PSA Group's senior vice president, chief sales and marketing officer, Stephen Norman, would be taking the helm after Harvey “elected to leave the business at the end of February”.

Norman will report to Peter Christian Kuespert, sales, marketing and aftersales managing director of Opel/Vauxhall.

The move comes in the same week that the PSA Group announced a further 250 redundancies at its Ellesmere Port manufacturing facility and amid an efficiency drive which hopes to return the Vauxhall brand to profitability for the first time in almost a decade.

The official statement announcing Norma’s appointment said: “Stephen Norman joined Groupe PSA in May 2014 as chief marketing officer and was appointed senior vice president, chief sales and marketing officer in 2016 with remarkable achievements.

“In this new capacity, he will be responsible for leading Vauxhall Motors and Opel Ireland business and development, in-line with the new strategic plan PACE!

“Given his extensive worldwide marketing experience, Stephen Norman will also serve as marketing reference for Opel/Vauxhall.”

Vauxhall slipped to third place in the UK’s biggest selling car brands during 2017 as registrations slipped by 22% to 195,137.

The result saw the brand’s UK market share fall from 9.32% in 2016 to 7.68% in 2017.