JCB and agricultural dealer Rea Valley Tractors (RVT) have announced plans to strengthen their long-term relationship through a big depot investment and territory expansion.
RVT is transforming its branch in Sudbury into a dedicated JCB Agriculture sales, service and parts centre to serve customers in in Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Shropshire and mid-Wales.
In conjunction with that investment, RVT will also expand its territory into Cheshire in January 2023 to offer the full range of JCB agricultural products from new premises in the county and bring RVT’s high standards of technical, parts and service support to new and established JCB customers.
Both moves will strengthen RVT’s 15-year relationship with JCB, serving customers throughout the region from depots in Welshpool, Shrewsbury, Newport, and Sudbury.
The Sudbury depot, located just 10 miles from JCB World Headquarters at Rocester, will become the RVT hub for managing JCB product sales, service, repairs and parts support. Experienced JCB-trained technicians will continue to provide local support from all the company’s branches, with a comprehensive parts stock also maintained at each location. In the meantime, JCB business in Cheshire will continue as usual, with products, parts, servicing and repairs available from the existing John Bownes premises at Winsford for the rest of this year.
John Smith , JCB Agriculture Managing Director said, “The RVT management team has ambitious plans for growth of JCB product sales, especially for Fastrac tractors, which have been constrained to some extent by other franchise considerations. As other franchise changes take place at RVT, it is very timely that the organisation expands its JCB territory coverage into Cheshire and develops a dedicated JCB facility at Sudbury.”
John Smith added: “We would like to thank the team at John Bownes for the past six years of dealer sales and service support.”
Steve Petford, RVT Managing Director, said: “During discussions on our future plans for RVT, retaining the JCB Agriculture franchise was always a key priority – after all, it’s a world-class manufacturer right on our doorstep.
“As a large Midlands-based business ourselves, we have always been immensely proud to represent JCB and expanding our relationship; transforming our Sudbury branch to a dedicated JCB hub is a clear illustration of that. We are also delighted that JCB has also given us the opportunity to expand our territory. We have a very strong record in supporting our customers across our existing territory and we are thrilled to be able extend this expertise to JCB customers in Cheshire from 2023.”
