A prestige Staffordshire car dealership has been on a recruitment drive, reinforcing its sales and service teams ready for 2011.

Knights BMW is celebrating a series  of new appointments and promotions at its Radford Bank dealership, to further strengthen the team ready for the relaunch of the new look site in Spring 2011.

The site is undergoing a £1million redevelopment to create a state of the art dealership  but remains open and trading during building work.

Heading up the new car sales team is Paul Turner, who joins the Knights BMW team from a role in Oman, where he worked for Honda.

Paul also has extensive experience of the BMW and MINI brands through a previous role in Shrewsbury and is enjoying his return to the brand.

"BMW is a fantastic manufacturer to work with as they are committed to offering the ultimate customer experience and supplying fantastic cars," he said.

"It is also a brilliant time to be joining Knights BMW and to be a part of the redevelopment of the dealership, which will create a fantastic site for sales and service for both BMW and MINI."

Paul, 38, lives in Shropshire with his young family.

Joining him on the sales team is senior used car sales executive Raj Datta, who joins from Benham BMW in Wolverhampton, where he held a similar role for seven years.

Raj picked up the top salesman role at Benhams, selling 175 cars in a year, and is looking forward to beating his record at Knights BMW.

"Knights BMW has become an incredibly strong brand in the region and I was delighted to have the opportunity to join such a forward thinking company at a time of substantial investment," he said.

"As I live in Stafford, I'm looking forward to using my local knowledge to work with the team to help put the new dealership on the map."

Also joining the sales team as a new car sales executive is Ben Andrews, who also lives in Stafford and has held similar roles at Arnold Clark and Volkswagen.

Completing the roll call of new  appointments is service advisor Craig Marson who joins the team with  six years experience with Benham BMW.

Craig, who lives in Wednesfield, is delighted to join the dealership at such an exciting time.

"BMW and MINI are both fantastic brands to work on and it's a great time to join the dealership as so much work is going into creating an extended service department," he said.

Carl James has also been promoted to the newly created service team leader as part of a restructure of the servicing department.

And in sales Drew Sutton has been promoted to used BMW sales manager from sales controller.

Dealer Principal David McGoldrick said the new appointments were essential in growing the business throughout the redevelopment and when the doors open on the new look dealership.

"We've recruited and promoted some very strong team members to make sure we are operating at full strength throughout the development and have the right people in place to maximise the opportunity the new look site presents," he said.

"2011 promises to be an exciting year for us and I am very pleased that the new recruits have chosen to come and join us to be part of that."