The showrooms of a major North Kent-based car dealer have been emptied of cars - but not by customers.

It is not clear whether Greens Motor Group, a Vauxhall and Saab main dealer, has permanently shut its outlets at Rainham and Holborough, near Snodland.

Some staff still remain at Rainham, but the showroom is empty.

The Holborough site appeared to be deserted on Wednesday, with just one car, a trade-in Mercedes, in the centre of the showroom.

All attempts to obtain information from the company about the situation have proved fruitless.

Cars have been removed from both showrooms recently.

Four vehicle transporters lined up along the A2 outside Greens of Rainham and took away dozens of cars.

A Mercedes showroom next door was also empty.

A Texaco filling station on the same site stopped selling petrol several months ago but a sign advertising fuel at £113.9 a litre remains on display.

A member of staff at the Holborough showroom called the Medway Messenger last week to say the premises were about to be emptied of cars but did not elaborate further.

The spacious multi-million pound building was opened about three years ago.

Speculation about the future of Greens, which was owned by Kia Joorachibian, a football consultant whose management company MSI was involved in the controversial transfer of Carlos Tevez from West Ham to Manchester United, has been circulating for some time, but none of our calls to the company has been returned.

It is not known whether Mr Joorachiabian still has any connection with Greens.

On Tuesday, neither the Rainham or Holborough branches of Greens could be contacted, as both phone lines were out of order.

On Wednesday,phone calls to both branches were not being answered.

The Greens situation follows a period that has devastated the motor trade. Dutton-Forshaw’s parent company Lookers closed the Skoda and Chevrolet dealerships in Maidstone, and Barretts of Canterbury recently laid off 37 staff - about 10 per cent of its workforce - across its Canterbury and Ashford operations.

Paul Barrett, managing director, said: “The whole of the trade is experiencing some fairly significant revenue decline. We’re about 20 per cent down in revenue terms on last year. We have never been through a restructure like this before.”

He added: “If what we’ve experienced in the last six months is transposed into the first six months of next year, we will see 2009 being a much worse year than 2008. That’s a big concern. We are going to see some significant casualties in the motor retailing sector.”

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