SM UK Opens New Midlands Workshop

Following the successful opening (and popularity) of our northern workshop in Leeds in 2018, the decision has been made to open a further facility in the Midlands, with a similar locality to the national motorway network and customer base. This is to make it easier for our clients in the area to reap the benefits of our workshop when having safety equipment installed and van conversions carried out as well as making it easily accessible for them too.

The new Midlands Workshop will serve the exact same purpose as our Northern Workshop. It will be a destination and facility for SM UK’s customers in the midlands area to utilise, rather than taking up space at one of their sites. As there will be a team of engineers who will permanently be based at the workshop, it will mean customers can call by with their vehicle, which we have installed equipment onto, and have it assessed by one of our engineers based at the workshop.

Another benefit of having a facility such as this means we can have the site fully compliant when it comes to Health and Safety regulations, ISO 9001 standards, and Type Approval.

When initially searching for our first facility in Leeds, the shopping list included a space large enough to house approximately twenty large commercial vehicles at any one time, so we could carry out fleet installations, but also a facility which had good access to the local motorway network. As part of the centre’s development and capabilities to benefit our clients, we took on a fully-qualified HGV driver who would be able to collect and return customer vehicles once work was completed, therefore not using their own time and resources to bring the vehicle to us. Since opening the workshop in Leeds, we are now proud to say that we have ten permanent staff and an Apprentice who are permanently employed to ensure the safe and efficient running of the centre. Future plans for this workshop will be to take further staff on, and expand our Apprenticeship program further.

Steve Macdonald, CEO of SM UK had this to say about the new facility in Tamworth: “We were pleasantly surprised as to how popular our first Workshop became after we opened it in mid 2018. Since day 1 we’ve had commercial vehicles  and vans of all sizes in there with our engineers installing equipment come rain, snow or wind. The idea with the new Workshop in the Midlands is to mirror the building’s function exactly from our Leeds facility. We hope our Midlands customers will be able to use the new facility to the same extent!”

We’re currently preparing the facility to make sure it is fit for purpose from day 1. We’re already working hard to have the workshop open by December, if not sooner, so we’re ready for the new year demand and more than prepared for when the new ’20 reg comes out in March!

So, where is it located? Following a review of where our customers are mainly located in the Midlands, specifically around the Leicester/Birmingham/Northampton area, the decision was made to look close to Tamworth and the M42 motorway network. St. Modwen’s Business Park just outside of Tamworth had the perfect space from which the 13,000 sq.ft facility is going to be based. The business park itself is located perfectly along side the M42, just off junction 10 (providing access to the east and southern parts of the UK). Being in this location, this means we also have easy access to the M6 (just two junctions away).

All the services which we are known for installing to a high standard will be available at the Midlands Workshop including our HALO® Cycle Minder system, commercial vehicle CCTV systems, rear radar, ultrasonic detection systems and van conversions.  As part of this particular centre’s development we will having a small recruitment drive to employ for the following positions:

• Business Development Manager
• A fully qualified HGV driver
• Auto Electrical Installation Engineers
• Van Conversion Engineers

Interested in applying or knowing more about the job details? Send your CV through to our Recruitment team – ‘recruitment@smfleet.co.uk’.