New facility open for business
LEICESTER-BASED Sturgess Motor Group have opened their new purpose built Bodyshop, Vehicle Preparation and Logistics Centre, situated on Coventry Road, Broughton Astley.
These premises will be used for preparing new vehicles, as well as providing new facilities for the group’s accident repair workshop, which relocates from their Aylestone Road dealership in Leicester.
The centre, which includes specialist aluminium repair booths, and new, highly efficient vehicle ovens will give the group more space for these operations, better facilities and newer technology, and will allow for the company’s anticipated future growth.
Andy Potter is the Group After Sales Development Manager.
He said: “We are looking to significantly increase the size of our bodyshop’s output by the end of this year.
“By moving into a new facility, this provides the capacity we need, in addition to conducting additional services like vehicle smart repair and aluminium wheel refurbishment.
“These are just two good examples of additional services that we will be able offer to customers.”
The new centre will streamline the preparation of new cars prior to delivery to their owners and allowing more avail- ability for retail service work for the brands currently represented by Sturgess at its sites.
These brands include Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Hyundai, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Abarth and Suzuki. Sturgess also have Authorised Repairer agreements for Toyota and Nissan.
Sturgess are looking to recruit an additional six people in the relocated Bodyshop, and the new car preparation activity will require the recruitment of an extra eight people to their team, creating up to potentially 14 new job opportunities in the area.
Relocating the Bodyshop also creates extra capacity at their Aylestone Road dealership, where they have plans to increase sales volume significantly.
This will lead to extra staff being recruited to cater for these increases.
Managing director, Barney Sturgess said: “We’re delighted to move to an out of town facility, as it removes internal operations and significant traffic from our retail facilities and allows our team to focus more closely on our customers and their vehicles.
“The addition of this development to our business is in preparation for a period of further growth for our business in line with our franchise partners’ aspirations.”