Inchcape UK has officially opened its new Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) dealership in Derby 12 months after it gained planning approval for the site of the city’s former cattle market.

The new six-acre JLR facility combines the previous Jaguar dealership, which was located adjacent to the former Derby Cattle Market, and the Land Rover dealership at Pride Park in-line with JLR’s Dual Arch corporate identity.

Completion of the project comes as part of a significant investment in JLR by Inchcape, which will also deliver new Dual Arch dealerships in Guildford, Norwich and Kings Lynn.

The new Chequers Road site in Derby, which is one mile from the city centre and close to the A52 linking Derby with Nottingham, features 100 parking spaces and a 26-bay workshop.

Marcus Jones, head of business at Jaguar Land Rover Derby, joined the business in September having previously worked for Stratstone Land Rover and Jaguar Nottingham.

He said: “Having worked with the brand for over 20 years, it is a really exciting opportunity to lead on the opening of this impressive retail outlet.

“I know our customers will enjoy their welcoming experience with the convenience of parking, a comfortable lounge area and friendly colleagues to greet them.

“As a team we love the new environment and look forward the rest of 2019 here and in to 2020. We have created a retail automotive hub for the East Midlands.”

Alex Merricks, franchise director for Inchcape Jaguar Land Rover, said: “It is amazing to open our fifth state of the art Jaguar Land Rover site.

“This investment will undoubtedly help advance the service levels we are able to provide both old and new customers, whilst also giving them greater choice in a fantastic environment.”

Back in July Inchcape said that it would be targeting “revenue and cost optimisation” in the UK car retail market after its disposal of seven Volkswagen and Audi dealerships.

Commenting within its first-half 2019 financial results published today (July 25), the AM100 group said that it had seen its retail business in the UK stabilise during 2019 and was seeking further improvements following the disposal of seven sites, to Group 1 Automotive and Motorline for a combined sum of £21 million, and another Audi retail location to Harwoods Group.

In October the group completed the sale of its Inchcape Fleet Solutions (IFS) UK vehicle fleet management and funding division to Toyota for £100m.

Just last week, meanwhile, AM reported on correspondence to Inchcape employees which suggested the group was poised to sell its Twickenham and West London VW sites to Citygate Automotive.