Parcel carrier DPD will invest £100 million to build a new 330,000 sq ft parcel hub at Hinckley Commercial Park in the East Midlands.
The facility will create up to 1,000 new, permanent full-time jobs in the area.
The new hub will be capable of handling 70,000 parcels an hour and will increase DPD’s overall parcel capacity by 65 per cent. The hub building itself will be around 470 metres long.
DPD hopes to begin building work in September of this year, and for the hub to begin operations in 2015.
DPD’s three other hubs are all located in the West Midlands around Smethwick.
The project is part of an £175 million investment plan announced by DPD in November 2012, following what the firm calls “unprecedented growth.”
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Dwain McDonald, chief executive, said: “We are investing significantly in the brand and delivering the network capacity we are going to need in the future for our customers. By continuing to invest in infrastructure and technology we will secure not only the 6,700 jobs we already provide in the UK, but also create another 1,500 new jobs across the UK in the next two years.
“This is a long term strategic decision, based on our success in recent years and our projections for the online retail channel. Retailers really like Predict because it helps ensure their deliveries get to their customers first time, and in turn that encourages more repeat purchases.
“Our network capacity is fine at the moment but we need to make sure that, as demand increases from our customers, we have the potential for growth and we have more flexibility to handle increased capacity right across our network.”
The company won a record £70m of new business from online retailers in 2012 since the launch of its Predict service, which provides customers with a one-hour delivery window so they do not have to wait in all day for their parcel.
DPD reckons more than 97 per cent of the millions of parcels delivered each year with Predict are delivered “right first time.”
The firm has appointed Goodman to develop the site, close to J1 of the M69.
