Northern Commercials Hildenborough gets a makeover

Northern Commercials Hildenborough previously known as Stormont Engineering Company Ltd has been operating from the same location on London Road for over 60 years.

At the beginning of 2022 the decision was made to complete a total renovation of the site comprising of the internal office space from the ground up to the first floor incorporating a total transformation of the Bodyshop Reception, Service Reception, Parts Department, Workshop Administration and customer waiting area.

Also, as part of the transformation the forecourt canopy was removed, the Workshop floor replaced, the dealership was clad in the latest Iveco corporate identity and signage finished with a brand-new re-laid tarmac forecourt.

The first phase of the project was the ground floor office spaces comprising of the Service, Parts and Service Admin areas where TJW Design assisted in the complete renewal of everything such as new suspended ceilings, floorings, furniture, state of the art glass partitioning with Northern Commercials manifestations emblazoned across them and redecoration throughout.

The second phase was the Sales area, Bodyshop office, customer toilets and stairways where everything was renewed and re-modernised.

Whilst the work was completed, the staff utilised portacabins as temporary Service Reception and Workshop Control areas. All of the staff embraced the temporary change as they knew that at the end of the journey would be a dealership that showed the professionalism that Northern Commercials delivers to all of our customers and a dealership that would be the flagship of the Iveco Truck Network that everyone would be proud of.

The office refurbishment started in June 2022 and was completed at the start of November 2022. The work that was done was a mixture of white walls and grey flooring and using glass office partitions to allow as much natural light to fill the areas but making things as practical as possible for all the departments to be close together to increase productivity.

Phase three focused on the exterior dealership cladding and the installation of the new Workshop Inspection pits and the mammoth task of renewing the Heavy and Light Workshop floors, which started at the end of January 2023.

We had to partition off our old pits so that the Groundworks teams could dig out the old brick pits and underground oil tanks to make room for the new state of the art pre-formed metal pits. These were designed, supplied and fitted by Premier Pits in conjunction with Autoquip Garage Equipment.

For the workshop flooring we opted for a grey Pumadur HF flooring that is a heavy-duty Polyurethane floor screed that is designed with the highest order of durability, impact abrasion and chemical resistance with all works being overseen and completed very professionally by Bespoke GB.

We had a massive task as we had to close half of our workshops off at a time, have all of the floor fixed ramps etc removed whilst the renewal of the floor was completed and then reinstalled after completion of the works. Again, Bespoke GB kept to the schedule and everything was completed in the agreed 6 weeks with the assistance of Autoquip Garage Equipment removing and installing the ramps made everything a great success.

That then put us into phase four the final phase and that was to lay a new layer of tarmac across the whole of the forecourt as it used to be just large concrete area that looked very dated and in a well- used and worn condition so having some fresh compacted tarmac and fresh parallel line painting made the front look clean, fresh, professional and organised.

At the forefront of all of the works that have been completed was the need to bring all departments together so that everyone can work closely, communicate and increase the professionalism even more in relation the highest service levels given to our very loyal customer base.

Commendations have to be given to Aran Cosford and Simon O’Shea for their project management of the refurbishment.