Giant Amazon warehouse plan
AMAZON hopes to create thousands of new jobs at a huge warehouse near East Midlands Airport.
The online giant is understood to have agreed a deal for a 500,000 sq ft site at the £700m East Midlands Gateway currently being built on land north of the airport.
The company has already struck a deal with SEGRO and Roxhill, who are developing the vast distribution park on a 700-acre site at the side of the M1.
It is also understood Nestle, through third-party logistics operator XPO Logistics, is close to signing for a 700,000 sq ft distribution centre there.
The new Amazon building would be roughly the size of eight full-size football pitches.
The building, which will have two mezzanine floors to provide 1.3m sq ft of space, is expected to be ready by April 2019.
A source said the deal will create up to 3,300 jobs.
Both deals are expected to be confirmed over the coming days, once legalities have been finalised.
Amazon already has a one million sq ft “fulfilment centre’’ in Bardon Hill, Coalville, which opened almost two years ago.
It has one of the biggest footprints of any building in Britain - the O2 Arena in London, for instance, sits on a plot of about 1.1 million sq ft.
Half of that new warehouse is given over to floor-to-ceiling racks and the other half is used for receiving and sending items out.
There are 86 lorry loading bays with a couple of hundred vehicles dropping off and picking up each day.
East Midlands Gateway has planning consent for up to six million sq ft of logistics space and will incorporate a 50-acre strategic rail freight interchange.
Named SEGRO Logistics Park East Midlands Gateway, the development will directly create 7,250 jobs, alongside 900 construction roles and 3,000 indirect jobs.
SEGRO is funding £100m of infrastructure at the interchange, including a 50-acre rail terminal and extensive road improvements that are designed to give the best possible connectivity to the 10 plots now available to occupiers.
A partnership with Highways England and other highways authorities is also leading to better connections at junction 24 of the M1.
Roxhill, a specialist in industrial and distribution development based in Rugby, began work via Winvic Construction on the first phase of East Midlands Gateway in January 2017.
The interchange will provide a million people based within a 30-minute drive across the three cities with a strong distribution supply.
About 332,000 typical logistics employees will be based within the same distance. The site will link road and rail networks, effectively acting as an inland port.
Its rail terminal will connect the site to the Castle Donington freight line, providing direct access, via the Rugby Loop, to the major eastern and southern UK ports such as Southampton, Felixstowe and London Gateway.
East Midlands Gateway will be built in six phases, with all infrastructure work due to be completed by the end of 2019.
The first involves a new roundabout on the A453 Ashby Road, providing access to the development from the north of the airport.