Tom Highland has acquired a fourth site for his family’s East of England petrol retailing business, as he gets closer to his ambition of operating 10 forecourts in the next eight years, by the time he is aged 40.
Tom was given two accolades – the Special Recognition Award and best Midlands site over 4mlpa for his Childerley Gate Service Station – at last week’s Forecourt Trader Awards 2024. And he says that he has big plans for the newly-acquired Esso forecourt in St Neots, Cambridgeshire.
While the Cambridge Road petrol station is much smaller than his Childerley Gate operation in nearby Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire, it will replicate key features from the award-winning location which judges had described as an upmarket blend of Tebay Services and Marks & Spencer.
The new site will be given a complete revamp and mirror Childerley Gate’s branding; serve-over food to go bakery with freshly made baguettes, hot food items, cakes and coffee; and possibly a three- or four-bay state of the art jet wash station. It was previously owned by a private individual who wanted to retire.
Tom, managing director of Highland Group having taken over the reins of the business from his father Stephen, says that the site is in need of updating and that the renovation will be “as close to a rebuild as possible without actually knocking it down”.
He is planning on extending the Best-One branded shop from around 400sq ft to 1,300sq ft, and to replace the fascia with his company’s Highland Group colours. The outlet will be supplied with groceries from Nisa.
The forecourt will remain an Esso site and will have new pumps, with all four fuel grades, and 32 nozzles instead of 24.
“We are keen to get started and put our own stamp on it,” says Tom who hopes to start work on the site next month. Most of the improvements he says can be completed while the forecourt is still trading, but it will need to close in the new year for a final two to three week push, he predicts.
All of the six staff working at the 6am to 10pm site have been retained.
Tom says that the potential and location of the site made it an attractive addition to his business. ”It is a busy forecourt, and is within our cluster, not too far from where I live.
“We plan to extend the shop and give it a full revamp, taking the ceiling down, the floor up and giving it a new front. On the forecourt itself we will rip up the pipework, reline the tanks and introduce new pumps.
”It is doing north of 4mpla – and the amibition is that once it is revamped to a high standard, we will see a large increase in fuel and a vast uplift in shop sales,” he says.
Tom is also in the process of buying a fifth site which, he says, is “quite a way down the line” with his solicitor. He hopes to complete on this purchase in the new year.
As well as the two Cambridgeshire sites the business owns, Highland Group has two other two forecourts at Potton, in Bedfordshire, and Royston, in Hertfordshire.
