An independent family auction house has announced it is to make some redundancies. Lay Auctioneers, which operates three auction rooms in Cornwall, said that, like all other businesses, it has been feeling the squeeze from rising costs.
The family-run firm announced to would cut jobs in an attempt to reduce its operating costs and also looked at the possibility of closing its Scorrier auction room (home and garden) near Redruth and keeping its Lanner (Asian and Islamic art) and Penzance (fine art) sites going. However while Lay Auctioneers announced it had worked with its five staff in Scorrier to keep the site open, it had had to make four redundancies at its head offices in Penzance.
Operations manager Martha Lay has quashed rumours that have been circulating that Lay would get rid of a much as 17 staff. She said it was categorically untrue and only four people will leave the business through voluntary and compulsory redundancies, which equates to about 13 per cent of the workforce.
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She said: "Rumours have been circulating that up to 17 jobs are at risk at Cornwall-based Lay’s Auctioneers and that their site at Scorrier is to be closed. However, we can confirm that the Scorrier site is to remain open, keeping the five jobs that were threatened by its closure and committing to the home and garden sales until March 2025 at least.
"Since January the family have been discussing whether to follow the growth strategy of most auction houses and focus on selling higher value items only. This is typically done by setting a floor on the value of items that are accepted for sale."
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Martha said Lay’s currently sells more than 30,000 lots per year, and around 40 per cent of those, or 13,000, are sold through its home and arden sale at Scorrier. She said that 90 per cent of these items sell for £20 or less and to deal with this volume of lots it needs a lot of space, people and support staff time.
While most auction houses would decide to scrap the lot because it does not generate the income more prestigious items might, she insisted keeping the Scorrier sale room and team going has added social benefits.
"We recognise that, although the sale of low value items is not always profitable, keeping this part of the business has many other benefits," Martha said. "The home and garden sale employs five people who are passionate and hard working. Stopping the sale would mean the loss of these jobs which is not a decision to make lightly.
"The sale supports the businesses and livelihoods of many people outside of Lay’s. Sellers, house clearance companies, buyers and others rely on the service offered by Lay’s. Eye-opening feedback from these people has added a new motivation to continue to operate the sale.
"The sale is a key part of the local circular economy, reducing the amount of stuff that ends up in landfill and helping to protect the environment."
However the company confirmed that while the Scorrier site is safe for now, some jobs have been lost elsewhere in the business as a way to keep costs down. Martha added: "Rising costs and the need to make efficiencies have forced us to make job cuts at our site in Penzance resulting in four redundancies."
