City Auction Group is to offer an extended range of defleet services at its Rockingham site under a new partnership with IT Fleet Automotive.

The City Auction Group has introduced a dual lane auction hall at the refurbished Rockingham centre

The two firms have already been working together over the last 12 months through City Auction Group’s Belfast site and the new deal expands this to Rockingham, benefiting major corporates.

IT Fleet Automotive is now taking 8-10 acres at the site, which will be used to offer a complete range of defleet services including collection, vehicle inspection, refurbishment and resale. This includes the introduction of its FleetPlus vehicle fleet management system, which manages all aspects of the fleet in-life and end-of-life process, including electronic appraisals with imagery, real time reports and KPIs, online estimate approval process, tracking vehicles, real time reports and KPIs.

The move means that City Auction Group will be able to remarket grade 3 and 4 ex-contract hire vehicles as grade 1 and 2 vehicles, delivering vendors a better ROI.

Michael Tomalin, managing director of City Auction Group, commented: “We have been very impressed working with IT Fleet Automotive at our Belfast facility and we believe they are the perfect partner for us, having established a fantastic track record.”

Andrew Timmis, managing director of IT Fleet Automotive, added: “Rockingham is an excellent strategic base for us, complementing our other eight locations in the Midlands, the North of England and the South East. We are looking forward to extending our partnership with City Auction Group and to supporting more corporate customers with our combined, complementary defleet services.”

The announcement comes hot on the heels of City Auction Group’s completion of major investment in its newly expanded Rockingham site following a six-figure investment in recent months. Additions include an all-new dual lane, together with redeveloped inspection, valeting and presentation bays, which will help the company push its annual volume capacity in 2019 to a predicted 100,000 passenger cars and 50,000 LCVs.