UNITED Dominions Trust's new contract hire and fleet management company will be called First Service Management and be based in Harrogate.

London-based UDT, part of the Lloyds-TSB Group, aims to be operating a fleet of around 15,000 vehicles within the next five to seven years. The company is recruiting staff and Phil Stones, UDT's director of sales operations, said that depending on business volumes First Service Management would employ up to about 30 people by the time it operated 15,000 vehicles.

As revealed by Fleet News (March 8 and 15) joint managing directors of the new company are Nigel Stead, former managing director of JCT600 Contracts and Nick Brown, previously managing director of Hartwell Vehicle Contracts. First Service Management, which is billing itself as 'the complete vehicle management company', will handle three types of business - vehicle leasing, fleet management and joint venture and joint finance company business generated by a number of manufacturers.