A “gold mine” of a petrol filling station in central Cornwall, which has been owned by the same family for 65 years, has come on the market for £2.75 million with Christie & Co.
Probus School Filling Station, located between Truro and St Austell, has a large 1,618sq ft Nisa convenience store, with a Post Office, and the forecourt has four pumps, with 24 nozzles, and a couple of jet washes.
Since switching from a local fuel supplier to Gulf in 2022, it has nearly quadrupled its fuel sales and expects to hit 1.8 million litres per annum this year. The shop sales meanwhile have grown by at least 40% since moving from Londis in 2023, to around £30,000 a week, and the business earns another £18,000 to £20,000 a year commission on top of this from the Post Office.
It also has the benefit of being energy efficient says Christie & Co’s Matthew McFarlane who is putting the business on the market this afternoon. It has 32 solar panels on the shop roof and a borehole providing free water for its valeting services.
The third generation to run the business, Victoria and Shaun Poore, say that they find the business has grown to such a size that it has become too much for them. One of their two daughters and Victoria’s mother also work at the forecourt, which Victoria’s grandfather originally built on the site of a former school in 1960.
They hope whoever buys the property will continue to run it as a community hub for the people living in Probus. They also hope that the new owners will progress with the planning permission that has been granted to extend the shop further with an extra 39 square feet extension, with the original aim of expanding chiller space and introducing a coffee machine.
There is also scope to extend trading hours, with the business currently open 7am to 8pm Monday to Saturday, and 8am to 6pm on Sundays.
Victoria Poore says: “We are ready to retire now, not having had a holiday in the past eight or nine years. This business is growing quicker than we can keep up with now and is a great opportunity for someone else to continue to move forward.”
McFarlane adds: “This is a great opportunity to acquire a long established, beautifully presented, and well-run petrol filling station in central Cornwall. The business is beautifully presented and highly profitable with both shop sales and fuel volume increasing year on year.
