Forecourt operator Danny Ahmed is acquiring his third site – Tower Garage in Cannock, Staffordshire – which is part of a five-year plan to hit double digit figures.
Danny, who already owns forecourts in Birmingham and Wednesbury, is planning on spending £250,000 on redeveloping the site, which he is taking over on a 15-year lease, with hopes to buy the freehold later.
He hopes to complete on the deal for the Brindley Road forecourt before Christmas, and will rebrand from Pace to Murco.
Currently the business has fuel volume of around half a million litres a year, but there is scope to increase this with 2,500 houses being built in the area, and Danny’s plans to introduce a convenience store on the site. He is also preparing to double the amount of pumps to four, with 24 nozzles, introducing super unleaded alongside diesel and standard unleaded.
He will continue to operate the servicing/MOT business on-site, and is planning on introducing two jet wash bays, a Revolution laundry machine, and two electric chargers. He also wants to replace the 3.3m high canopy with one of 4.5m so that tankers delivering fuel no longer have to reverse onto the road.
He also hopes to create a 2,500sq ft Costcutter by converting existing workshop space. It will have food-to-go, including Danny’s own-brand Bull Burgers, and Rollover hotdogs. It will also have a Costa Coffee and also ISqueeze pineapple cubing machine – the second for his business.
The previous owner Ed Grimley has spent 40 years in the industry. Now, aged 56, he is planning to move with is wife to Chester to be closer to his son and grandchild, and to spend summers in Florida where his daughter lives.
He says that his heart is no longer in the business, which was originally set up by his father, also named Ed, in 1966. He says that it is time to hand the business over to someone keen to develop it.
“It is a good anniversary for me to stop, having hit 40 years in the business in July. I’ve had enough to tell the truth. I’ve worked here man and boy from the age of seven when I helped out. It is a combination of reasons really why I am moving on: my dad finishing here 10 years ago, my kids growing up and moving away, and wanting to spend more time with my first grandchild,” says Ed.
“I’ll maybe do a bit of MOT testing freelance work, while spending more time with my family.”
Danny is the son in law of the late Arshad Iqbal, a director of Falcon Service Stations. Danny bought his first site, Holloway Head Service Station, over 11 years ago.
He also recently developed Holloway Head Service Station with a nine-room boutique hotel above it, and in a spin-off business he wants to use the template to replicate the initiative at other operators’ sites.
He says that he has another forecourt in sight which he hopes to complete on in the next quarter of next year in the Midlands, with a target for 10 in five years.
