7:25 am, February 18, 2024
The Dick Lovett Porsche Centre in Swindon has been granted permission to extend its showroom.
Council planners in the Wiltshire town gave the go-ahead for the development in Frankland Road, which will also see a secure compound added.
According to the application, which was submitted last May, it’ll see internal floorspace on the 9,780 square metre site grow from the existing 3,100 square metres to 5,300.
Another 10 jobs will be created in the process, taking the number of full-time employees to 50.
Parking at the luxury car dealership will also increase from 75 to 164 spaces.
Dick Lovett has three years to begin the building work, but before it starts, biodiversity measures including wildflower planting as well as the installation of swift/bat/bee boxes will need to be approved.
The dealership must also allow for secure and sheltered storage for at least 20 bicycles to encourage sustainable travel in accordance with Swindon’s 2026 local plan. It currently already has 10.
In the supporting documents, Dick Lovett said that because of the change to Porsche’s global corporate identity (CI) as well as the growing range and service requirements, it needed to overhaul and expand the dealership to meet new demands from the manufacturer.
‘The new CI requires new cars to have a greater amount of space for each car and a more customer-centric approach to showroom layout,’ it said.
‘This has resulted in the need for a larger showroom as well as increased used car display space.’
Dick Lovett said more bays were needed by the workshop as well because of the increased model range, more need for servicing and being able to accommodate EVs’ needs.
Eight more bays will be available at a second workshop that is helping to make up for space lost from the existing workshop to the showroom development, which is also swallowing up some of the used car display area.
The main extension to the existing building will be to the south side and will include the new ‘eyelid’ detail on the north-western corner of the building, where there will be two handover bays.
The original dealership was built in 2015 after approval was granted in 2014 and is next door to Ferrari Swindon, also owned and operated by the Car Dealer Top 100 firm.
Dick Lovett was established in 1959 as a two-man Leicester-based business called Ross Motors that sold motorcycles.
It now has a workforce of almost 900 people, with high-end car showrooms in Swindon, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Tewkesbury, Melksham and Hungerford.
Pictured at top via Google Street View is the Dick Lovett Porsche Centre in Swindon
