About Tomlinson Groundcare

Robert Tomlinson has a long history in the lawn care machinery. He joined Overland Machinery Ltd,a John Deere dealer, in 1978 as a agricultural engineer,and after four years became parts manager. Three years later he moved to the position of salesman, specialising in groundcare equipment. The thirteen years spent with Overlands provided Robert with a vast knowledge of John Deere machinery. This equipped him with all the skills necessary to found his own company, Tomlinson Groundcare, in February of 1991 to sell John Deere Horticultural Equipment.
           
Along with wife Karen,Robert established the business operating in just one workshop, the adjoining office, and a section of what is now the grinding shed.

The company specialised in John Deere equipment, but also dealt in Hayter, Beaver, Allen and McConnel. By March of that year, they expanded the workforce to include Geoff Martin, a service techincian also from Overlands, to deal with an increasing workload. Ray Wells joined the company three months later.
          
In 1992 the premises expanded into extra building, and the remainder of the grinding shed.Further development included the acquisition of a showroom towards the end of 1992, about the time  at which John Deere introduced the 455 lawn tractor and the selling of diesel machines escalated rapidly. With a good reputation for diesel tractors the company prospered and was able to expand further.
          
By 1999 six people were employed by Tomlinson Groundcare and the premises were extended to their current situation, minus the recently obtained parts store. After the fire of 1999,an extension was constructed at the rear of the showroom
and two offices were refurbished. Following this the company started to become fully computerised, and went live in October of 2000. Customer and stock information including over 3000 line items are now all stored on computer, and the company makes good use of a range of online services including banking, parts ordering, machine orders, service problems and warranty.

2004 saw the launch of the Tomlinson Groundcare websites, and a rise in the number of staff up to seven permanent members and a further two part-time workers.

In 2005 a new larger purpose built workshop was erected to help accomodate
the increased work load and larger machinery.

2007 saw the addition of another sales representative to make three and also an apprentice fitter.

2008 John Deere introduced the 2720 & 5020 to the compact tractor range and the XUV 850D Utility vehicle

2009 John Deere launches the 20C & 25C geared tractors and the 3036E hydrostatic tractor
  
Tomlinson Groundcare offers a variety of other branded equipment such as AL-KO, Allen, Club Car, Echo, Etesia, Port Agric, SCH, and Turfmech, and have built up a large quantity of customers including over 2000 domestic, 25 golf courses and over 10 councils.

2009 also sees the building of a purpose built showroom to replace the old chicken shed that was used as the mower showroom

2009 Tomlinson Groundcare appointed AL-KO dealers which will provide a greater choice of  lawn mowers and log  splitters for our customers 

2010 John Deere launches X130R 18hp V-Twin petrol 42" rear collect tractor mower