Nearly 30 jobs have been lost after Unipart Automotive went into administration.

A total of 28 staff at branches in Hove, Worthing, Eastbourne and Crawley have been made redundant.

Unipart is one of the UK’s largest independent suppliers of car parts, workshop consumables and garage equipment.

It trades under the names Partco Autoparts, and Express Factors brands.

Administrator KPMG sold part of the business to Andrew Page and The Parts Alliance saving 361 and 33 branches including Hastings.

But the remainder of the Unipart Automotive business has ceased to trade with 1,244 staff made redundant nationwide.

Joint administrator Mark Orton 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 on a going concern basis.

“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.

“Our team of employment specialists will be supporting all staff on completing redundancy forms and putting them in touch with job seeker services. We will now be reviewing what options are available for the remainder of the business, such as selling leasehold interests.”

The company also directly supports over 700 independent, owner-operated garages through its Unipart Car Care Centre programme, in addition to having 19 franchisees.

These companies fall outside of the administration and will continue to operate as normal.