Yearsley Group to start £20m expansion at Heywood
Logistics specialist to create new ‘super hub’ in North West
Yearsley Group is to start work on the expansion of its Heywood headquarters to meet demand for new contracts. Construction is set to begin in June in order to provide storage facilities for new customers coming on line later in the year.
Harry Yearsley
The 13.6 acre site will accommodate a 160,000 sq ft unit which will be built and fitted out in three phases. Trafford-based Russells Construction has been appointed to carry out the works which will see the first two phases built this year (comprising 100,000 sq ft, or 27,000 pallet spaces) with the remaining floor space and fit out completed in line with future demand.
Planning was secured in 2011 for the new unit at the Hareshill Distribution Park, immediately adjacent to the Group’s national headquarters which currently has a 40,000 pallet capacity. The new cold store will ultimately provide a further 40,000 pallet spaces, doubling Heywood’s capacity and enabling the company to create a northern ‘superhub’ where stock will be consolidated for more efficient delivery into the UK’s major retailers and food service organisations.
The new Heywood expansion will amount to a total investment of around £20million, creating upto 150 new jobs and securing employment for the existing 300 members of staff at Heywood, the majority of which come from within a 10 mile radius.
Harry Yearsley, managing director of Yearsley Group, said: “The Heywood cold store is currently near to full capacity so the expansion of our operation is in direct response to the demands of new and existing customers for whom this North West location is ideal. It will become the first of two national ‘super hubs’ for Yearsley Group, enabling us to consolidate more stock in single, strategically located stores, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing carbon output.”
“The cold storage and distribution market has developed over recent years and customers at both ends of the supply chain are demanding faster, more efficient, environmentally conscious services from their logistics partners. The extension of Heywood will ultimately provide us with a frozen storage capacity of more than 80,000 pallets in one North West location, helping us to better meet the storage needs of manufacturing customers and the delivery requirements of retail and food service customers across the country.”
Yearsley Group invested heavily in making Heywood the centre of its UK operation in 1999 as it was not only ideal for logistics distribution with good links to the M66 and M62, but had room for expansion. The new steel frame building will be similar in style to the neighbouring facility, providing a floor space of around 160,000 sq ft and built to the environmental rating BREEAM ‘Very Good’. The building will be superinsluated, to help reduce energy use, and will include rainwater harvesting system to feed the cooling systems and save on fresh water usage. The plan includes 111 car parking spaces plus HGV parking. Planning was secured on behalf of the Yearsley Group by advisors Indigo Planning Ltd.
The second ‘superhub’ will be strategically located to complement the North West operation and other ‘regional’ depots, and sites in the East and Southern regions are currently being considered. This consolidation strategy forms part of Yearsley Group’s forward plan which has seen the recent launch of the Global Logistics platform (including freight forwarding) and provision of an ambient storage and distribution offering from its Grimsby depot, providing additional services for existing and new customers.
