THIRTEEN jobs in North Yorkshire including eight in York have been lost as a car parts supplier goes into administration.

Mark Orton, Will Wright and Jonny Marston from KPMG have been appointed joint administrators to Unipart Automotive Limited.

Administrators have closed 147 of Unipart Automotive's 180 sites, including York's Layerthorpe branch resulting in eight redundancies. The Harrogate site has also been closed with five jobs losses.

However some jobs have been saved as immediately upon appointment, the administrators sold part of the business in a joint deal to Andrew Page and The Parts Alliance.

The deal will see Andrew Page acquire 21 branches, including the site in Northallerton and The Parts Alliance a total of 12.

Mark Orton, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “Despite intensive efforts over recent weeks, a sale of the whole Unipart Automotive business could not be reached, and a buyer could only be found for 33 of the sites.

"Unfortunately, the business had been experiencing financial stress for a number of years, so the level of cash and further operational restructuring required to rescue a more substantial part of the business posed too much risk for most interested parties.

"We will now be reviewing what options are available for the remainder of the business, such as selling leasehold interests.”

The company, headquartered in Solihull also directly supports more than 700 independent, owner-operated garages through its Unipart Car Care Centre programme, and 19 franchisees. These fall outside of the administration and will operate as normal.