Peter Vardy (businessman)

Peter Vardy

Sir Peter Vardy DL (born 4 March 1947) is a British businessman and philanthropist from Houghton-le-Spring in Sunderland. His business interests have been mainly in the automotive retail business. In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was placed 388th with an estimated fortune of £140 million.^[1]

He attended the Chorister School in Durham (1956–1961)^[2] and Durham School.^[3]

Business interests

Vardy took control of the car dealership Reg Vardy plc in 1976, after the death of the founder Reg Vardy, his father. In the late 1970s he was successful in acquiring franchises to sell various brands in the UK. From 1982 he expanded into the volume car market, first with British manufacturers and subsequently with European and Japanese marques. In January 2006 the dealership was sold to Pendragon, the largest UK car dealership chain, for £506m. Vardy stepped down as Chief Executive the following month.

Vardy was awarded the inaugural Industry Personality of the Year Award in a round of Automotive Management Awards and received a knighthood for services to education in the Queen's Birthday Honours list of 2001.^[4]

In May 2006, the Vardy Group of Companies was launched in Durham, comprising the Vardy Property Group, launched by his elder son Richard; and Peter Vardy Ltd, launched by Peter Vardy (grandson of Reg Vardy) who had previously been general manager of Rossleigh Jaguar Edinburgh.^[5]

Educational and philanthropic work

Vardy operates a philanthropic group, The Vardy Foundation, supporting several community causes.^[6]

He has worked to involve business in education,^[4] and funded the building of a City Technology College in Gateshead and three Academies, in Middlesbrough, Thorne and Blyth. These four schools form the Emmanuel Schools Foundation,^[7] a coalition of schools with a Christian ethos based in the north of England. The schools have received Ofsted ratings from "good" to "outstanding".^[8] In October 2010, Vardy transferred sponsorship of the schools to the United Learning Trust, another sponsor of academies but one with a mixed record of success to date, as noted in The Guardian article of 5 November 2009 entitled "ULT ordered to halt expansion".^[9]

Vardy has stated that widespread reports that he is a creationist are incorrect,^[8] and that he has a very traditional view about how science should be taught. In an interview with the BBC Today programme,^[10] Vardy said: "I believe that God created the earth and created man in his own image; quite how long it took him I don't know". However Nigel McQuoid, former director of schools at the Emmanuel Schools Foundation and former Principal of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and The King's Academy, publicly took a recognisably creationist stance, claiming that creation was a theory and evolution a "position of faith".^[11] In January 2011, Vardy won a claim in the British High Court against Tribune over claims it had made about the Emmanuel Schools teaching creationism.^[12] More recently Sir Peter has begun to support homeless people, who through alcohol and drug misuse or on leaving custodial sentences find themselves without a home.^[13] The Vardy Foundation is partnering with Betel International^[14] who operate 80 homes across the world and have 25 years' experience in this work.^[15] The Foundation plans to open three centres in the North East providing a home, meaningful work and somewhere to belong. The first opened in Hexham in September 2011.^[16]

Vardy's other current focus is preventing children going into the care system and finding ways to keep families together, working with the group Safe Families for Children,^[17] an established charity in the USA which in the last five years has helped over 10,000 families in crisis by early intervention support. He has set up a team to pilot a faith-based initiative in the North East region across all eleven Local Authorities.^[18] SFFC UK^[19] is currently in the process of recruiting 1,000 volunteers and in May 2014 will roll out SFFC across the whole of the UK.^[20]

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