Chessington headquarters of Specialized suffers fire
The UK headquarters of Specialized have suffered a fire over the weekend, starting Saturday at 6:38PM and taking until 10:25PM to extinguish.
The London Fire Brigade attended the blaze on the Barwell Business Park, with 12 crews totalling 80 firefighters attending the blaze. Eagle eyed members of CI.N’s trade-only Facebook Group spotted the local news story on Saturday night, correctly identifying the headquarters in the photographs.
Specialized UK confirmed the news, telling us this morning that it is “business pretty much as usual”, despite the offices being gutted by the blaze.
Kirsty Woodcock of Specialized’s marketing team said: “Over the weekend, we were notified that a fire had affected our UK headquarters. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but sadly the fire had a devastating effect to our offices. While there will be short-term changes to certain business operations in the UK, our warehouse is located elsewhere and therefore, our operations for riders and retailers are not impacted. We are working closely with the authorities to understand more about what happened.
“All retailers were contacted over the weekend with additional information on the effected operations, and they will be notified throughout the week as things evolve. Luckily we are all very well practiced in working remotely!”
The Barwell Business Park is also home to both Canyon and GoCycle’s UK headquarters.
The incident marks a second unwanted headline for the Specialized brand, whose Californian headquarters were hit in a high value smash and grab back in December. Among the $160,000 worth of bikes stolen were unique examples that have featured in the brand’s decorated history on the podiums of pro-cycling, as well as prototype models.
