Joseph Parr (Full Refit)

RACKING specialist Filplastic has helped swap luxury cars for building materials at a commercial development in Bradford.

(L-R) Paul Taylor, managing director of Filplastic Ltd; Michael Beaumont, manager of the Joseph Parr Group’s new Bradford depot, and; Gary Winter, Filplastic business development manager for Yorkshire and Humber, outside the new Bradford depot.

The East Yorkshire company was appointed by builders’ merchant the Joseph Parr Group to convert a car showroom into a trade depot and warehouse complex on Manchester Road in the city.

Joseph Parr bought the site from Pendragon in September last year, which housed the car dealership’s luxury brand Stratstone.

Filplastic, headquartered at Eastrington near Howden, was appointed to supply baskets, shelving and racking, and to fit out the 17,000sqft showroom as a shop and trade counter.

The company also supplied timber racking for the warehouse, which had previously been used as a service centre to repair and maintain cars.

Gary Winter, Filplastic business development manager for Yorkshire and Humber, said the company was delighted to be involved in what was an unusual project.

Filplastic won the contract in a tender against two competitor companies.

Mr Winter said:

This was one of the more unusual projects we have been involved in. When we first saw the site it was clear it had been a car showroom and was very modern in design, which is not the something you think of when you think builders’ merchant. In fact the service area still contained equipment for working on cars, which needed moving.

But we worked closely with Joseph Parr who had a very clear vision of what they wanted to achieve. They had done a lot of the design work so that made the fit outs and installation much easier for us, although the warehouse presented some interesting challenges.

Mr Winter added that the end result was impressive:

Starting out with such a modern building meant that the final effect was always going to be different to your average builders’ merchant.

It looks fantastic and we are really pleased to have been involved with the project.

Michael Beaumont, manager of the Manchester Road branch, said Filplastic’s expertise had helped ensure the development had gone according to plan.

He said:

We appointed Filplastic for a number of factors; product quality, price, but also expertise. We needed a partner that would help us get the branch right in terms of practicality, use of space and ease of use for our customers and our staff, while also looking really good. We knew what we wanted to do, Filplastic helped us turn that into reality.

Now up and running, the branch looks fantastic and we’ve had some fantastic feedback from our trade and retail customers.

Headquartered in Liverpool, the Joseph Parr Group has branches in Liverpool, Port Sunlight, Oldham, Rochdale, Stoke-on-Trent, Stockton-on-Tees, Edinburgh and Broxburn in West Lothian, Scotland.