Increased franchise standards and rising building costs have forced one of north Scotland’s best known dealer groups to close a sales operation and pull out of planned expansion.

Dicksons of Forres will cease new and used car sales from its Nissan-Kia site in Forres, Moray, on March 31, after 45 years in the same location.

Finance director Jim Gibson says: “Increased costs made our planned investment in an £800,000 new-build showroom uneconomic. The standards our franchisers wanted were unrealistic for the level of business we would generate.”

New demands, in particular from Nissan would have forced Dicksons to increase the size of its proposed showroom from 3,200sq ft to 4,100sq ft.

The closure means 15 redundancies at the dealership. It will also be the end of motor trade operations at the site, which has been home to garages for more than 100 years.

Managing director Alistair Scrimgeour and Jim Gibson have owned the business, which employs 90 people, since 1989 when they bought the operation from Dicksons of Perth. They later opened a second branch at Inverness, which also sells Nissan and Kia.

They plans to expand the St Catherines Road bodyshop in Forres, and make a £100,000 investment in the Nissan franchise at Dicksons of Inverness.