Used car supermarket group AvailableCar has acquired the 11.5 acre former Carcraft site near Leeds.

The £8 million deal was part funded by Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. Lloyds Bank’s Manchester-based Mid-Markets team provided a £5.6m property loan to support the transaction.

AvailableCar is investing over £1 million to renovate the site located at Junction 28 on the M62 and the company is expecting to open in January 2016.

The new site will recruit 150 employees and will stock up to 1,500 used cars with prices between £3,000 and £23,000 across 36 different brands.

Graham Bell, AvailableCar chairman, said: "After having such incredible success with our East and West Midlands based car supermarkets, we felt we wanted to add a Yorkshire location to our portfolio and a high profile city like Leeds is the perfect destination.

"Many of our managerial team already live in Yorkshire and have been looking into the former Carcraft site since its closure in April when the business went into administration.

“After viewing, it made sense to purchase an already purposefully designed and built car supermarket.”

Managers have already started the interviewing process and are urging all possible applicants, particularly those who lost their jobs at the former Carcraft site, to come forward to apply.

AvailableCar says it has one of the highest retention levels in the motor trade with 94% of employees staying with the business since it opened in 2002.

The business offers a 'Profit Related Pay Share Scheme' annually. This sees employees have a share in all group profits made as a year-end bonus, which this year will be worth over 16% of every annual salary paid at Christmas (equivalent to almost two months of salary).

Established in 2001, AvailableCar is owned and run by husband and wife team Graham and Alison Bell. The business, which had a turnover of £208m for the financial year ending December 2014, employs more than 500 staff at sites in Cannock North Birmingham, Castle Donington East Midlands and Sutton in Ashfield North Nottinghamshire.