Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Car showroom ‘feels more like boutique’
The managing director of a leading medical device company in Ashford and another senior board member, have stepped down. Tom Cole has been boss of the ITL Group, which designs and manufactures sophisticated medical equipment with a global customer base, for almost 30 years. He and long-serving business development director Greg Smith announced their departure last month. In their place, ITL has appointed Nick Colyer as MD and Stephen Hope as business develThe city’s biggest new car opment director. dealership opens next week The outgoing duo with the launch of Audi worked closely with Canterbury. the new pair during the The finishing touches are transition period before being put to the 40,000 sq stepping down. ft building on the corner of MD Tom Cole said: Broad Oak and Vauxhall “When I joined the comRoad which owners Motorline pany in 1992, our initial say will have the latest goal was to grow our in corporate branding, customer base, which technology and comfort. together as a team we The company is relocating have achieved. I’ve the franchise, currently called been proud to expand East Kent Audi, from Ashford the group’s operations Road, Chartham, to the side of into the US and China.” the city where it will sit among other prestigious car brands. Motorline added the German marque to its expansive portfolio of dealerships around the country in July 2018 and says the new showroom and service centre is bigger and Carousel Logistics able to offer a much wider co-founder and CEO range of new and used cars. Graham Martin has Company chairman Glen confirmed he is to Obee also expects the number vacate the hotseat after of staff to grow from 40 to more than 30 years. about 55. The Sittingbourne-based firm confirmed he would hand over the reins and move to a non- executive director post on Carousel’s board. In his place comes Jonathan Simpson- Dent, formerly CEO of ATM service provider Cardtronics International and support services firm WLT Europe. Graham Martin said: “Every founder knows that at some point the time must come to hand over the baton and for me, that point is now. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved.”
It will be equipped with a drive-through service reception and digital check in, and customers will be able to relax in the stunning new showroom which the company says will feels more like a boutique than a car dealership. Mr Obee says the new building represents an investment of £8.5m and but presented some technical difficulties from the outset. “The site was not previously developed and had been a Victorian tip so the ground was contaminated with things like broken glass,” he said. “We had to clear a lot of top soil and get it appropriately disposed of which was quite expensive.
“We also wanted the building to have a very low carbon footprint in the way it operates which added to the cost.” But Mr Obee says that despite the company’s expansive network of dealerships, the new Audi site is particularly special because it is in the business’s home town where the group was founded in 1972 and continues to have its headquarters. “We are very excited about the new site and feel we have relocated to the right part of the city where the heart of the motor trade is based,” he said. “It is also the first new dealership we have created in 10 years.”
“The larger premises will allow us to display more new and used cars from the increasingly growing Audi range , which includes their new electric vehicles.
The Motorline Group is one of the city’s biggest business success stories, growing from its first Toyota dealership in 1976 to 55 dealerships across the country covering brands including Volkswagen, Lexus, Hyundai, Peugeot, Škoda, Nissan, Maserati, Toyota and Audi. It employs 1,800 staff and last year turned over £850m.