Penton, the South of England motor group, has received planning approval for its new Citroen and DS dealership at Holes Bay, Poole.

Penton, owned by the Wilson family, currently operates two Citroen dealerships in Salisbury and Christchurch, and added a Vauxhall franchise in Salisbury in December 2013.

In Poole, the £3.5m investment will include a 12,000sq ft showroom and workshops with a 150 car forecourt, incorporating Citroen UK's very latest corporate identity standards, and with permission for an extra 5,500 sq ft showroom for future expansion.

It will fill a sales point left open since 2010 following the demise of the Wyatt Group.

Penton bought the 3.5 acre site in September 2013, and is now poised to begin construction and hopes to be trading by January 2015. A 1.5 acre section of the site will be retained for future development.

Robert Wilson, managing director, said "We are very pleased to have been awarded our third Citroen dealership and to have been able to acquire a suitable freehold site for Poole Bournemouth West.

"This completes a triangular Citroen market area for us that we have been seeking to achieve for quite some time. The group turnover will increase substantially from under £30m to around £45-50m when both Vauxhall Salisbury and Citroen Poole are fully on stream.

"The Poole dealership will cover the area from the west and our Christchurch dealership from the East."

Penton has been a Citroen dealer since 1990 in Salisbury, and in Bournemouth since 1995.

"We are very pleased with group trading performance which has brought us record company trading results for our last fiscal year and indeed the past two to three years have been exceptional. We now have three large modern fully corporate freehold sites, the smallest being two and a half acres, a solid financial base with good succession in place.

"We will be keeping an eye open for further investment opportunities when we have the Poole dealership completed."