LUDLOW is to get a massive £3 million investment in a new Land Rover dealership.

The move will create a number of new jobs in the town and provide a boost to the local economy.

Shukers will make the investment on a site in Parys Road near to their present dealership.

Work on the site will begin next month and it is expected to take about a year to complete.

Shukers is independently owned and is part of the family business the Rubery Owen Group.

The company has been in Ludlow for more than 30 years having opened the first dealership in 1981 in Sheet Road before moving two years later to its site in Lingen Road.

Shukers currently employs 25 people and three new jobs have already been created in connection with the new site.

There is a new head of business at Ludlow Joseph Barney and two new sales executives Charlie Webb and Kirsten Pugh. There will also be the recruitment of further sales and administrative posts.

Construction of the new showroom and workshop is expected to be completed in February 2016.

The beginning of the project will be marked by an event including Ludlow MP Philip Dunne and the mayor of Ludlow Paul Draper.

It has not been decided what will happen to the existing nearby Shukers site but it could become a dealership for one of the other makes sold by the company.

Shukers also has dealerships in Shrewsbury.

Rubery Owen Holdings Ltd, which is based in Darlaston, West Midlands, is the parent company for the RO Group of Companies.

The company has been at the forefront of automotive component technology since the birth of the motor car.

At its height it employed 17,000 people worldwide with 5,000 skilled workers at its 74-acre site in Darlaston.

Many of the cars made in Britain will have had a Rubery Owen product in it, whether a wheel, an axle or a simple bolt.