Vehicle leasing specialist Silverstone Fleet Management is celebrating a decade of trading and pushing ahead with continued customer-focused growth. 

Silverstone Fleet Management now operates from a purpose-built barn conversion at Preston Deanery, running a 10-strong team and working with the top finance providers in the UK

The Northamptonshire firm, which prides itself on its first-class customer service, was the brainchild of managing director Scott Norville and incorporated in August 2012 when he hot-desked at his sister’s office on the Brackmills industrial estate as a one-man band. 

Norville had previously worked for a dealer supplying cars and quotations to the broker market, gaining great insights into the world of brokers and where a niche opportunity lay to support customers. 

He explained: “The leasing broker market was saturated and had been for years with many ‘bedroom brokers’ offering services with extremely poor customer service. On the flip side to this, many other brokers were high-volume brokerages focusing on churning out cars, rather than on the customer and journey. 

“Silverstone Fleet Management was born out of recognising the gap in the market for a customer-focused solution.” 

With the country just out of a recession, it took a lot of long hours to build the business and a lot of rejection in the early days from finance partners.  

SFM delivered 50 vehicles to customers during the first full year of trading; in pre-pandemic 2019 it handled 756 vehicles and this year – despite Covid, the semiconductor shortages, Brexit and the Ukraine war – it anticipates sales of up to 1,500 vehicles nationwide with a continued yearly growth of 25%. 

It now operates from a purpose-built barn conversion at Preston Deanery, running a 10-strong team and working with the top finance providers in the UK – which it says enables it to provide exceptional market-leading offers and support to clients. All vehicles are supplied through a national network of main dealers.  

SMF also sponsors a grassroots lady’s football team and in 2021 became a sponsor for Northampton Town Football Club. It also regularly fundraises for charity, in particular Cynthia Spencer Hospice.  

Norville commented: “To say I am proud of what we have achieved as a team would be a huge understatement. Despite all the recent challenges, we continue to work hard, stay positive and provide a first-class customer service, which is why I started SFM in the first place. It is a dream come true to have successfully reached the 10-year milestone.  

“The positivity and willingness of the SFM collective alongside our hoard of awards and valued collection of online reviews is both humbling and inspirational. We always strive to be better, to do more and to be the best possible version of the industry for our clients and will continue this in the next decade to come.”