DPD hopes to build a £100m parcel hub in the East Midlands, increasing its overall capacity by 65%.
The firm is currently in the process of obtaining planning permission to develop the purpose-built 330,000 ft² hub in Hinckley, Leicestershire, which it hopes will be fully operational in 2015.
The development forms part of a £175m investment in its hubs and depots, unveiled in November, and will be capable of processing 70,000 parcels an hour.
Chief executive Dwain McDonald said: “We aren't standing still. We are investing significantly in the brand and delivering the network capacity we are going to need in the future for our customers.”
The investment also included proposals to open 10 new depots within 15 months and followed a period of ‘unprecedented growth’ in the B2C parcels sector, which DPD claimed was due to the introduction of its Predict service last year.
“Our network capacity is fine at the moment but we need to make sure that, as demand increases from our customers, we have the potential for growth and we have more flexibility to handle increased capacity right across our network,” McDonald added.
DPD chose the Hinckley Commercial Park site as its three other hubs are located around Smethwick in the West Midlands, where it believes there is less scope for it to increase capacity in future.
