The owners of a car auction site outside Whitchurch are celebrating after breaking a 20-year old company record.

Aston Barclay, on the A41 in Prees Heath, made the historic start to the year at its Wednesday fleet sale last week, the inaugural sale for Santander, sold 290 units, the highest number sold in a single day at the site, since Aston Barclay acquired Prees Heath Motor Auctions in 1998, for leading vendors including Alphabet, Zenith, LeasePlan and PSA Group.

Martin Potter, Aston Barclay's group operations director, is hoping the company will continue to expand in the coming years.

“The weekly fleet sale at Prees has continued to grow in popularity year-on-year with both vendors and

buyers alike making it one of the most respected auction centres in the UK," he said.

“We have been working with the local council to look at ways of developing the Prees Heath site over

the coming year to cater for this increased demand and we are confident the expanded site will bring

great benefits to the local community with new jobs and investment."

The auction site has seen a buoyant start to the year with buyers coming out keen to replace stock sold over the festive period. Santander’s first sale at Prees was an added attraction for buyers.

The record breaking sale saw Santander and PSA stock achieve a 100 per cent conversion rate with used fleet prices averaging between 98-100 per cent of CAP.

Throughout the day, a total of 27 per cent of bids were submitted via the group’s online platforms with a total of

11 per cent of bidders accessing the sales online on desktop and mobile via the Buyer’s App. In total 39 per cent of the newly-offered Santander vehicles were sold to remote bidders.