Dealership will see a £60m investment
AN investment of £60m will see a new Mercedes Benz car dealership open in Stockport.
LSH Auto UK has been given planning permission to open the showroom - along with a body and paint repair centre - at Brighton Road, Heaton Mersey.
The dealership will be across a 10.5 acre site that can house 140 vehicles and create 165 jobs. It will be the company’s hub for the Greater Manchester area.
Council planners gave the green light last month having already approved a previous planning application to clear the derelict site.
Clive Hammond, LSH’s managing director, said the Stockport site will become an important location for the company.
He said: “We see great potential in the Stockport area as a strategically important location with its proximity to the airport and excellent transport links which will complement our international business structure.
“Due to this, we have chosen to create our hub for the Manchester area at Stockport and will relocate some existing functions from our Manchester Central business here.
“Our aim is to create an attractive facility which will provide a landmark destination at this prominent site. We are really excited about Stockport.”
Work will begin this month and an estimated completion date has been given as December 2018.
LSH already have a site in Stockport, on Wellington Road North.
But bosses see this location as small and too limiting.
The three-storey showroom will have a rooftop garden and will help redevelop an area that had fallen into disrepair and become a magnet for vandals and arsonists.
Mr Hammond said: “Our existing Stockport operation is significantly challenged in terms of capacity, limiting our ability to offer the desired experience to our customers.
“We are committed to delivering important and much-welcomed economic benefits to the area, in terms of a significant financial investment, employment safeguarding and new job creation.
“We will be making wide-ranging environmental improvements to the area, through the regeneration of a derelict former industrial site which has suffered years of neglect and the provision of two landmark buildings for this important site at the gateway to Stockport.”