Burnley is centre of the world for Boohoo

A Burnley distribution centre is rapidly establising itself as the centre of a global online clothing brand.
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Booming boohoo.com, which has centres in New York, Los Angeles, London, Leicester and Manchester, could not do without its Burnley Distribution Centre, which sits at the heart of the operation, acting as the hub for the company’s four brands.

Early last year the group aquired fashion brands PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal. Today the boohoo group sells to more than eight million customers in almost every country in the world.

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Council and business leaders were invited last week to see the latest developments at the company’s huge site at the Heasandford Industrial Estate, Widow Hill Road.

BoohooBoohoo
Boohoo

Such is the success of the company, that the rate of growth in revenue has required an increase in personnel and the total permanent workforce at Burnley now stands at 1,415.

However, boohoo made headlines for the wrong reason last year when it was criticised for its treatment of staff in an undercover investigation on the Dispatches Channel Four show.

One of the criticisms was that workers had to walk up to 25 miles per day, a situation which boohoo bosses have said will be rectified when new automated services will be introudced in the next year.

Boohoo warehouseBoohoo warehouse
Boohoo warehouse
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Last year represented the start of that new multi million pound investments and improvement project that continues this year.

The first stage saw the original warehouse site transformed to create new and improved staff facilities, including a new canteen, remote working facilities and gym.

Staff will be offered new menus and a weekly schedule of fitness classes as part of boohoo’s commitment to ensure the wellbeing of its staff.

The second stage of the development saw the existing warehouse expanded by three more mezzanine floor layers, increasing capacity by another 275,000 square feet and the addition of units one and three has taken the square feet total capacity to 1.045m sq ft.

The new Boohoo warehouseThe new Boohoo warehouse
The new Boohoo warehouse
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A spokesman for the company said: “The group takes learning and development very seriously and have invested in their existing staff by undertaking several large-scale training and development programmes as part of its up-skilling and retention policy.

“Next month 87 members of staff will complete an NVQ Level 2 qualification in Warehouse Management.”

The shell of the second warehouse extension is now completed and ready for the next stage of the development, which will incorporate a significant amount of automation and will see the total operation capacity of the site increase to over 2m sq ft.