Major automotive parts broker arrives in Redditch

Published by

Peter Davison

Ian Parker of John Truslove with Alastair Whatmore of RS Automotive Core in its new Midlands base in Redditch

An international vehicle parts company has opened a warehouse base in the Midlands.

Ian Parker, joint managing director at John Truslove, helped RS Automotive Core take a ten year lease on the 52,401 sq ft Unit 2 on Enfield Industrial Estate in Redditch.

Sitting on a 2.64 acre site, it gives the Essex-based company a major Midlands base at the centre of the UK’s transport network.

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RS Automotive Core distributes vehicle parts for refurbishment to companies both in the UK and globally.

It buys up and supplies used core parts such as brake calipers, drive shafts and steering racks and has around a million parts in stock at any one time.

Customer relations manager Robyn Webster – a member of RS Automotive Core’s founding family – said: “We wanted to expand to handle rotating electrics rotating electrics and turbochargers, but didn’t have enough space at our headquarters in Benfleet.”

She explained that new managing director Alastair Whatmore had previously worked in Worcestershire and knew Ian Parker, joint managing director at John Truslove.

Mr Whatmore said: “The Midlands made sense for our expansion, because of the transport links and the availability of experienced automotive engineers because of the area’s historical links to the automotive market.

“I’d worked with Ian previously and knew that he and John Truslove would have the local knowledge and contacts we needed.

“We knew this site was becoming available and Ian was the ideal intermediary to ensure the deal went smoothly.

“We now have a team of five highly skilled engineers working on the site and it has allowed us to expand our offering to our clients internationally.”

Ian Parker added: “I was delighted to work with Alastair again and to help a major vehicle parts broker such as RS Automotive Core to establish a major operation in the Midlands.

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“Our unrivalled local knowledge and contacts make us an excellent choice for any company seeking a new site in the region.”

Tony Gaymond, of site owners Business Village Ltd, said: “John Truslove did a good job. They engaged with the new tenant, worked through the process and everything went very well.”

RS Automotive Core were advised by lawyers at Taylor Haldane Barlex in Essex.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.