A major contract won by distribution company Wincanton to service Lever Brothers has led to the development of an automated warehouse which is due to come fully on line within the next few months. Simon Jack reports.
Wincanton’s search for a suitable site for a new national distribution centre to service its client Lever Brothers was far from national. The company looked within a limited geographic area, as Mike Duckett, automation business development manager at Wincanton, explains: “We wanted to find somewhere in the North West on the west side of Manchester along the M56 corridor. It had to have proximity to Lever’s factories at Port Sunlight and Warrington.”
New project
The new 13,796m2 (148,500 sq ft) building is on a 4.3ha (10.5 acre) site at Bass Developments’ Whitehouse Vale development park, off junction 11 of the M56 at Runcorn. The site was acquired in August 1995 and the building constructed under a fast-track project in 12 months by J T Design, now part of Higgs & Hill. It was developed to handle Lever Brothers’ fabrics and household products and is partly operational – within the next few months it will be fully on line. Goods come in from Lever Brothers factories before being taken to retailers’ distribution centres and then to stores.
Bass Developments gained planning permission for a high-bay building – the internal eaves height is 28m (92 ft) – on a speculative basis, before Wincanton had even won the Lever Brothers contract. This was a telling factor in choosing the site, according to Duckett. “We evaluated a number of other sites in the same geographic location. Whitehouse Vale was an established distribution site and there were no potential planning difficulties. That made procurement of the building straightforward.”
The fact that the land could be purchased freehold was also appealing, he says: “We realised that would give us more control over the building and development process.” Duckett believes that the provision of a high-bay building was just one factor in helping to win the contract. Another important element was Wincanton’s track record in operating automated warehouses. The company runs a 23,225m2 (250,000 sq ft) national distribution centre for Britvic at Magna Park, Lutterworth, as well as an automated warehouse for a major pet-food manufacturer at Corby.
Long-term contract
The investment needed to build an automated warehouse is immense – Duckett refuses to divulge how much Wincanton has spent at Whitehouse Vale. For a distribution company, the risk is usually only worthwhile if it receives a long-term contract from its customer. It is not known how long Wincanton’s Lever Brothers contract is, but it is believed to be for as many as 15 years.
The warehouse, which employs only 55 staff, includes a 7,220m2 (77,720 sq ft) fully automated storage area served by seven cranes. This is the tallest part of the building and pallets can be stacked 12-high. The goods are protected by in-rack sprinklers, and a heating system ensures that the temperature never drops below 5¡C – colder than this and some products could sustain damage.
The building includes a low-bay receipt area where goods are unloaded manually or by an automatic conveyor, which can empty a full lorry of 26 pallets in 90 seconds. There is also a 2,601m2 (28,000 sq ft) area for picking individual cases from full pallets and for carrying out added-value work such as labelling for promotions. The rest of the warehouse site is made up of offices, plant rooms, staff facilities and a 24-hour gatehouse.
Former brewery site
Whitehouse Vale development park is on the site of a former Bass Brewery. Bass Developments, which is responsible for maximising properties no longer needed by the Bass group, began marketing it in 1992. The first occupier was distribution company Tibbett & Britten, which took 59,456m2 (640,000 sq ft) in a former packaging plant and warehouse on 12.1ha (30 acres) for its client, B&Q. Plywood and board distributor Bligh Boards followed last May with a 0.7ha (1.7acre) warehouse and, in November last year, textile dyes manufacturer CTC took 0.8ha (2 acres) for a 1,858m2 (20,000 sq ft) manufacturing unit and warehouse. Telecommunications specialist Digital Exchange Communications occupies the ground floor of the former brewery office block, Vale House.
Mature woodland covers some 2ha (5 acres) of the park, with about 12.1ha (30 acres) remaining for development. Paula Reed, Bass Developments’ development surveyor, says that there is permission for offices, manufacturing and distribution. A master-plan divides up the remaining space into six plots ranging from 0.5ha to 3.5ha (1.3 acres to 8.7 acres). However, the plan is only a guide; the land is available from 0.4ha (1 acre) up to the whole of the remaining amount.
Roads investment
Part of the park’s infrastructure was already in place to support the brewery, but there have been improvements, especially to the spine road. There will be further investment in roads, along with drainage and power supplies, which will be installed as needed when new occupiers sign up. There is grant support available from the DTI through regional selective assistance.
Reed has found that the local authority, Halton borough council, is eager to encourage development – as it was when the Wincanton building became a possibility. “They are keen to see economic regeneration of the area. We try to work closely with them so they understand what our ideas are,” she says.
Bass is willing to offer the land as leasehold if required and to take part in design-and-build solutions. “We are prepared to be flexible according to what people want,” says Reed. A design team is available to prepare layouts after briefing by the occupier, project manage the construction process and prelet or presell the eventual building.
Such flexibility is very important, says Howard George of agent Davis George which is letting the site. However, so far, the lure of freehold development has proved irresistible for all the current occupiers. “It means people know they will be able to operate without service charges and it is cheaper from a development point of view because developers have to mark up their prices to give themselves a profit.” Again, he adds: “The planners are fully behind the site. I don’t think they raised a single objection in the case of Wincanton.”
Strong competition
Whitehouse Vale competes with other popular distribution areas, such as Heywood, north of Manchester. But George believes that it is able to hold its own: “It is a very attractive site with a greenfield feel to it but located on the edge of the conurbations of Liverpool and Manchester. And it is near to the motorway.” It also has to compete at a more local level. This was the case with Wincanton. “We knew at the time of the Lever Brothers contract that Wincanton was looking at other sites in and around Warrington,” says George.
Prices at the park are currently £333,580 per ha (£135,000 per acre) and 0.5ha (1.3 acres) is in solicitor’s hands for another occupier. George expects the remainder of the site to have been taken up in the next 18 months. As a guide to potential occupiers, one 12.1ha (30 acre) plot could accommodate a 46,450m2 (500,000 sq ft) building. George says that, at present, inquiries are running half and half between manufacturers and distribution firms. “If people are looking in this area, we tend to be on their shopping list.”
