Personally delivered a car to Chelmsford today. I’d like to thank whoever decided to close two of the toll booths at the Dartford Tunnel for the extra one hour crawl from the A21 to the tunnel, although the appointment I was trying to get home in time for has been cancelled.
As a car dealer with one eye on any potential car sales sites, there’s a marked difference between Essex ‘The Used Car Capital of the UK’, where there seems to be a used car dealer at every corner, or indeed along entire roads in the Leigh on Sea and Southend areas and here in West Sussex, where every garage or car pitch that may come along is snapped up as retirement flat developments. The land being worth between £750000 and £1M per acre prohibits any thought of developing a car sales site.
So the upshot is that any new business such as my own develops in industrial units. It’s not the end of the world, because you can make up for the lack of passing traffic by using the money saved on cheaper premises on targeted advertising. Of course you don’t get the impulse buyers or word of mouth from people who do not use the car magazines or Internet to search for a new car. However, most car sales sites are purchased with a view of the land increasing in value during ownership, the business having a value when you come to sell up or retire. Most industrial units are leasehold, writing off that ‘retirement’ revenue.
Maybe the local council need to be enlightened as to the requirements of fledgling businesses, by passing plans for PLC style car sales estates they probably think they are already flying the flag, but of course, businesses have to start somewhere and right now, there’s nowhere to go.
It’s good to know though that despite so many cars available in East London and Essex, people will buy a car from here if you offer the right product and the right price and condition.