Town's oldest motor dealer is sold off (From Warrington Guardian)

Town's oldest motor dealer is sold off

WARRINGTON'S longest established car dealership, PLP Motors, was taken over by Lookers, Britain's fourth largest automotive retailers, on Monday in a £3.2m deal and an immediate assurance was given that there would be no job losses.

Spokesman James Hill said the company had a fine record in this regard and felt that the expertise of staff was critical to the success of the business.

Established as a haulage business in the yard behind the Lion Hotel in Bridge Street 1919 by Jack Povey, Harry Leadbetter and Harry Peake, PLP became Vauxhall dealers before the Second World War. They expanded to take over the business of Percy Duckworth in Winwick Road and prospered under the stewardship of the late Keith Weeks. After he left the company it was acquired by General Motors but would return to private ownership in 1998.

Warrington-born Chris Lloyd, initially a sales executive with Baldwins, another of the town's long established dealerships, who later became managing director of a Jaguar dealership in Stoke, returned to Warrington to join PLP in the same position in 1990. He masterminded the opening of the futuristic premises on Winwick Road in 1994.

More recently PLP opened a Vauxhall dealership in Widnes, started to sell Daewoo, now Chevrolet, cars from their premises in Old Liverpool Road and also operate a Saab service centre. The bodyshop is approved by all the leading insurance companies.

Lookers' chief executive Ken Surgenor told me: "This has reinforced our position as the UK's largest Vauxhall dealer group, bringing the total to 16.

"PLP gives us our first Chevrolet outlet and the Saab service centre is ideally positioned to support our Saab operations in Liverpool and Chester."

New man at the head of what is now called Lookers PLP is Andrew Tyler-Holland.

In all, the Stretford-based company now has 80 retail outlets representing 25 marques and 36 servicing and parts sales facilities. Turnover last year topped £1 billion and their quoted value is £120m. PLP's own annual turnover is £35m.