DHL has committed to invest £482 million across its UK e-commerce operation, DHL Parcel UK.
The investment follows a 40% volume uplift since the start of 2020 and increasing demand for the company’s e-commerce and B2B services.
Nearly half of the investment will be used for a 269,097ft2 hub in SEGRO Park Coventry Gateway, located south of Coventry Airport. The new facility will have the capacity to handle more than 500,000 items per day and is expected to create more than 600 new jobs including warehouse, driver, administration and management roles.
The new hub will feature secure bonded storage and customs capabilities to support international e-commerce, a 48-door cross dock facility and mechanisation allowing automatic sortation of mixed sized and weight items through high-speed sortation equipment.
The company will also invest more than £190m to create 10 new collection and delivery depots across the UK, and 20 more existing sites will be expanded. The new and expanded depots will create an additional 3,500 jobs across the country.
The locations of the new sites have been strategically chosen to reduce the distance required to serve customers, enabling further roll-out of electric vans and improving speed of service.