Stuart Riding, head of dealer sales at Harvest Energy, has taken the plunge and bought his debut forecourt – the first of what could be a series.
Stuart has taken over an initial 15-year lease of the Shell Cottingham Road, Corby site, from Peter and Joe Hockenhull, with accountant and former schoolfriend Simon Emery.
He plans to leave his full-time role at Harvest Energy at the beginning of December after nearly two years with the fuel distributor, and has already set about developing the under 4mlpa fuel volume, edge of town site.
Currently the petrol station, with a Spar shop, has four pumps with 32 nozzels with all fuel grades, and also it is fitted with two InstaVolt electric vehicle chargepoints. There is also a three-bay car handwashing facility which is leased out.
Just his second month into running the business, Stuart has introduced a Revolution laundry machine with two washers and a drier, and a 5m run of Inpost parcel lockers, to go alongside the 3m Amazon and Evri lockers. He is also planning to introduce Grip Hero gloves on the fuel pumps.
“I’m just trying to utilise every square metre of space,” says Stuart, who has nine years’ experience in the industry having started out as an area manager with Murco/MFG, and spent one year as area manager at Shell, which is when he became friends with the Hockenhulls.
It is his impressive contacts book which he has built up over this time, as well as knowledge from being out on the road visiting so many petrol stations, which gave him the confidence to make the leap from supplier to owner.
Next, before Christmas, Stuart plans to rejig the layout of the Spar store, working with Blakemore to improve the flow, and to model it more on a conventional convenience store.
Having already introduced Rollover hotdogs, he also wants to revamp the food to go area, which already benefits from inside seating, and sells among other things Stone Willy’s hot snacks, and milkshakes. Making sandwiches on site are part of his plans to create a “more rounded food to go offer”.
Stuart says that the location of the site, 25 minutes from where he lives in Rushton in Northamptonshire, with its “good community feel”, was a big attraction. But he is happy to cast the net further for future potential acquisitions within a two hour drive from his home. He says he would welcome approaches from operators wanting to dispose of sites which they think could be of interest.
He admits that his new venture is a leap of faith. ”My thinking is that my little black book of contacts is good and if I don’t know how to do something I will know someone who does, and hopefully they will be happy to help. The Hockenhulls have been incredibly supportive. We’ve become good friends. I used to be their Shell area manager.”
He adds: “From my point of view, I’ve worked with the best dealers and some of the worst, and have picked up different things from them all. Some people have described my decision as a mid-life crisis, but I feel very energised and excited about it all.”
