A whole lot of brand new cars were registered in Westmeath!

Over 1,500 cars have been registered in county Westmeath in the first six month of this year.

According to the latest figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), 1,539 cars with 161 registrations were registered in the Lake County.

This represents 1.52% of the 161 cars registered nationwide. In Roscommon, 1,023 cars were registered in the first six months of the year, representing 0.94% of 161 registration cars nationally.

SIMI revealed last Friday that new car registrations were up by 23% in the first six months of 2016 when compared to the same period last year, with 101,338 new car registrations this year, compared to 82,337 last year.

June saw an increase of 12% (1,626) compared to June 2015 (1,448). In the business sector Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV), are currently up 9% (867) on June last year (799) and year to date are up 26% (18,417) overall.

While Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) registrations, have witnessed a decline of -29% for the month of June (112) 2016 when compared to the same month last year (157), however registrations are up 42% year to date.

Commenting on the figurers SIMI Director General Alan Nolan said: “At the start of the year we predicted that this year’s registration numbers should reach 150,000 for the first time since 2008 and these figurers keep us on track to deliver that.

Now of course the focus turns to the 162 registration period.

This year promises to be the first normal year of registrations since the recession and with the range of attractive offers available across all brands we are confident that 162 will also deliver in the coming months.”