Swansway Group is investing £12 million in new-build brand centres in the North West.

The group’s Honda site on Queensway in Rochdale is to be demolished and totally re-developed into a new Honda centre and Volkswagen Van Centre serving Manchester North.

Swansway, winners of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Retail Group of the Year Award 2014, will also develop a new-build Van Centre on the site.

This twin development will involve a £3.5 million investment.

In Crewe another new-build centre is underway, this time Swansway’s first Jaguar dealership, costing £4.5m.

In Chester work is about to start on another twin site; the AM100 group’s first Fiat brand centre, twinned with a Citroen outlet, including the new DS lounge concept.

The former site will retail Fiat, Abarth, Jeep, Alfa Romeo brands, with Citroen and DS in a separate centre.

At a cost of £4 million this brings Swansway’s total investment to £12 million.

Swansway group director Peter Smyth said: “We’re looking forward to expanding our operations across the North West.

“This is merely a continuation of our on-going investment, and it’s interesting to see that recent talk about the ‘Northern Powerhouse’* has brought more focus on our area. Long may it continue”.

“As a group we’ve always strived to provide our customers with a level of service which keeps them coming back for more; these new centres will definitely help us deliver the very highest standards of customer service.”

All the new sites are due to open in the first half of 2016.

* In the final budget before the general election chancellor George Osborne outlined his vision for building a "northern powerhouse”. He told MPs employment and jobs grew faster in the north than the south during the last year. The phrase was then used in the Queen’s Speech this week.