More than 70 jobs created in Possilpark by Glasgow business

Glasgow-based firm, Allied Vehicles, is looking to create 70 jobs by expanding the business, despite facing several challenges over the past few years.

The family-run business was established nearly 30 years ago in Possilpark and is the UK’s leading company for converting wheelchair-accessible cars.

Bosses are now looking to ramp up production, as saying the business has finally “turned a corner” after a period of uncertainty.

Range of challenges

The business was hit firstly by Brexit when exporting to Europe became difficult, and then the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

This meant production had to stop while the country observed social distancing rules.

But more, the pandemic saw a boom in orders for tech as more people looked to work from home – this caused a global supply shortage of a specific kind of microchip that is also used in car production.

Soon, orders began to pile up as demand for wheelchair-accessible cars remained the same, but suppliers like Peugeot, Volkswagen, Ford, or Citroen were unable to produce the vehicles.

However, instead of making staff redundant, Allied Vehicles put their highly skilled workers to use painting buildings and cleaning car parks.

'Invest in people

Managing Director, Peter Facenna, says investing in staff was the key to weathering the storm: “If you invest in people, get them proud to work for the organisation and feeling valued, then you’ll be successful.

“Of course, there are other things – you have to be in the right markets, you have to produce innovative products and look after your products.

“But you can’t do any of those things if you don’t have a good team of people.”

'Proud to remain in Possilpark'

Peter added that he believes the creation of 70 new jobs will be beneficial for Possilpark: “My father, who’s our chairman, was born on Saracen Street and that’s still where we are today.

“We’re so proud to remain here and bring all these jobs to this area.

“It’s good that we can bring this success to the area, because it does in my opinion, get a bit of a bad reputation.

“There are so many good people here and the community looks after each other so we’re happy to still be here and to be expanding.

“Even though we’re in Glasgow, we’re very much a national company.

“The good thing is that we can now restart delivering these cars, and it’ll mean that this backlog of 2,000 customers who are usually housebound, will be able to get this vehicle which will be absolutely life-changing for them.”

'Light at the end of the tunnel'

With businesses across Scotland taking a hit with the current cost of living crisis and energy inflation, Allied Vehicles knows they are not yet out of the woods.

Operations director, George McAdam said the supply problems had been “horrendous” but that there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.

He said: “The plans we have put in place will bring an additional 78 people into the business and what that does is it allows us over the next nine to 12 months to expand our market share.”

“It’s a large project plan with lots of moving pieces to get there, but we have it within our grasp now and our control to take it forward.

“We had less than a day’s worth of cars at times and now, for the first time in about 18 months, we’re getting a week to two weeks’ worth of base vehicles here ready to convert, so we are seeing that flow of material coming in.

“I have no doubt there’ll be some other bumps along the road as we go through this, but I’d say there’s a lot more confidence in that supply now that we’re seeing it coming in.”

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