STEEL SKELETON OF PROJECT BRINGING HUNDREDS OF JOBS TO EMDC


June 13, 2011

Industrial/Warehouse News

The steel skeleton for what will be one of the region’s biggest buildings is being erected in Castle Donington.

Within two months, contractors will have put up 3,600 tonnes of structural steelwork for Marks and Spencer’s giant distribution centre.

The frame itself is over 30m high and is now visible from both the A50 and the M1.

The floorspace created for the building at the East Midlands Distribution Centre is as large as ten football pitches.

The multi-million-pound development is on course to be completed by December 5.

It is expected to employ hundreds of people once it is fully operational.

Construction work on a new rail terminal for the site is scheduled to begin in June.

There will be a rail siding with a 25m wide yard for offloading containers and an office, all to be finished by December 5.

Built on the former power station site in Castle Donington, management contractor Winvic currently has a total of 140 people on site. In the next few weeks, this number is expected to rise to 250 as work accelerates.

The deal to bring Marks & Spencer to Castle Donington was put together by Brailsford-based Clowes Developments which owns the land alongside their advisers FHP.

Paul Shanley is a director at Clowes Developments.

He said: "Seeing a building of this size go up has been just amazing and the first section will be handed over to Marks and Spencer in August."

A similar warehouse that opened in Bradford last year cost £40m to build and is expected to employ 1,200 when fully operational.

John Proctor, partner at property consultancy FHP took the latest pictures of the building site.

He said: "The sheer scale of the steel framework is absolutely breathtaking and I’ve never seen anything quite like it."

It will become the first Marks & Spencer warehouse to have a rail freight terminal.

Clowes Developments is investing some £7m to link the East Midlands Distribution Centre to the rail line between Birmingham and Nottingham.

Last year Clowes signed a deal with Network Rail for a connection to the site.

From this connection, there will be a 1.5-mile stretch of track leading to the rail terminal.

If everything goes to plan, the rail link could be in use next year, enabling Marks & Spencer to bring in goods directly from deep-sea ports and from the Channel Tunnel.

Clowes has become a major player in the industrial warehouse market, having recently announced a deal which will bring a new Co-Operative Group food distribution depot to its Castlewood site near South Normanton.

More than 130 new posts will be created at a site expected to employ 900 people in total.

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