PEOPLES, the UK's largest ­independent Ford dealer, has increased profits to a record £4.36 million in its latest financial year, as chairman Brian Gilda said the market for new cars in the UK was reaching its peak.

The company sold more than 16,000 vehicles across seven dealerships in Scotland and the north-west of England, boosting turnover by 10.3 per cent to £205m.

The results included an expansion of the company's commercial vehicle division, which was up 38 per cent on the year before.

Mr Gilda, a high-profile backer of the Labour Party in Scotland, said sales rose as consumers took advantage of unprecedented vehicle quality and competitive finance offers, with improving consumer confidence also a factor.

Mr Gilda, who revealed the first two months of the firm's current year have also begun well thanks to "enormous" new-plate sales in September, said: "We're in a business where if people don't feel good about what's happening they just don't buy cars.

"The three things together: good product, good financial offers and a public who are feeling comfortable about ­changing their car [means] it's obviously a buyers' market. That's self-evident from some of the deals that are out there."

On finance, Mr Gilda noted the benefits to car buyers of greater flexibility, including varied ­deposits and lengths of contract, as the well as the emergence of personal contract purchase (PCP) schemes.

Mr Gilda said PCP schemes had become "hugely important" to car manufacturers.

He noted: "The old days where everybody said they had to have ownership of a vehicle have not gone away, but they are diluted back to where people are quite comfortable to take a PCP deal and then change it within two or three years. It's a perfectly acceptable way of doing it, in fact it is a good way of buying a car."

No acquisitions were made by Peoples last year, but Mr Gilda said he remained open to doing deals and expected opportunities to come along. He said: "We had a look at a couple of opportunities during the course of this last financial year and just felt, for various reasons, they didn't fit our mix or priorities, so we didn't go any further.

"But of course in times like this you can end up having a separation between those who are doing well and maybe those who ain't doing so well. And if you can't get a decent return in this industry right now then you will never make it, so there definitely are smaller entities who are ­looking to say 'och, I've had enough of this'." The headcount at Peoples rose from 380 to 395 over the year.

It maintained its commitment to paying staff at least 10 per cent above the minimum wage and Mr Gilda signalled plans to start paying staff the living wage.

He said: "We are going to make the jump, and I suspect it will be between now and the end of this financial year."

It will this year introduce the FordStore concept to its flagship sites in Edinburgh and Liverpool, offering the new Mustang and luxury Mondeo Vignale ranges.

On the political front, Mr Gilda expressed relief that the ­independence referendum had passed. "My concern was it was plainly holding up some commercial investment decisions, which people had to make.

"And those commercial decisions, in most cases, related to businesses that were going to add - they weren't going to be decisions on taking businesses out or closing them.

"I'm encouraged by Nicola ­Sturgeon's comments that she is going to be looking to run the economy for the whole of the country, rather than just for a section of it."