Davies Turner to expand its UK airfreight base

UK-based freight forwarder Davis Turner has confirmed that it intends to begin construction this autumn on a second multi-million pound regional distribution centre (RDC), doubling the size of its present facility in Avonmouth, Bristol.
Bristol is the headquarters site for Davies Turner’s air cargo subsidiary.
The company has planning consent for a 140,000 sq ft (13,000 sq m) logistics hub equipped with 60 ft high racking for pallet storage.
Davies Turner has purchased sufficient land at the Central Park location to develop a second warehouse on the same site of at least another 125,000 sq ft (11,650 sq m). The second building will, if required, be designed for a specific customer, allowing for a bespoke lay-out and specialist automation.
Together with its existing Bristol premises at the junction of the M5 and M49 motorways, the new RDC will provide more than 250,000 sq ft (23,250 sq m) of warehousing, plus multi-storey mezzanines suitable for sortation, rework and the fulfilment services required for the company’s expanding e-commerce businesses.
Davies Turner chairman, Philip Stephenson, observed: “Prime locations and affordable sites of this quality are becoming very difficult to find anywhere in the UK.
“We have acquired the 12-acre (5 hectare) freehold site, which is part of the Central Park development adjacent to the proposed new M49 junction, from Delta Properties.
“We were attracted by the strategic location where the M4 and M5 intersect close to the Severn River crossings and the business park is even rail-connected.
“Our Bristol location, which also houses our subsidiary, Davies Turner Air Cargo, has had outstanding success and expanded rapidly in co-operation with our European partners and in the wider world markets, including North America, the Middle and Far-East, and Australasia.”
Completion of the purpose-built facility is scheduled for mid to late 2017, nine years after Davies Turner completed the construction of the first major addition to its original freight forwarding and logistics branch at Bristol.
The company’s existing hub is close by and will operate in tandem with the new facility, with both sites delivering – Davies Turner said – complementary supply chain solutions.
“We have an excellent track record in successful warehouse design and operation, including both dedicated and multi-user facilities. Warehousing and logistics support our freight forwarding services to cater for all customer import, export and distribution requirements,” Stephenson noted.
Bristol is one of Davies Turner’s key multimodal freight hubs; it has satellite branches in Bridgend and Plymouth. The company’s facilities in this region also work with the rest of the company’s network, with premises in Birmingham, Dartford, Heathrow, Manchester, Cumbernauld in Scotland, Dublin in Ireland, as well as another 14 smaller branches supporting them.
This news comes just a couple of months after Davies Turner started work on doubling the size of its freight and logistics hub at Cumbernauld in central Scotland.