WAREHOUSING MARCH 2020
SIZE MATTERS
As retailer B&M prepares to open a
million square-foot distribution hub
near Bedford, are warehouses today
getting too big – or will there always
be a need for ‘mega sheds’?
BY CHRIS BECK
Spend any time on the motorways and
A-roads of the UK and you won’t fail
to notice the massive warehouses
looming over the carriageway, each
coming with the promise of thousands
of square metres of storage and excellent
transport links across the UK and beyond.
One such ‘mega shed’ is a new distribution
centre belonging to discount retailer, B&M. It
is situated just outside of Bedford, and its stats
are impressive: a million square feet of storage
space (equivalent, for those who are counting, to
a dozen football pitches), 750 metres long and
with 140,000 pallet locations. When construction
started two years ago, it was the largest building
in the country. The warehouse is due to open in
the spring of this year. Fit-out of the site has been
undertaken by project management company,
Pentadel, which counts manufacturers including
Tyrells Crisps and HelloFresh amongst its client
base. The company has been working with B&M
on the project for the past 12 months.
“B&M has a number of warehouses, which it
has acquired, often from other major retailers,”
says Pentadel managing director, James Kemp
(pictured, right). “It therefore has an existing
supply chain that it wanted to use for things like
racking or sprinklers or forklifts. It couldn’t go
down a design and build approach because it
would get heavily penalised if it were to dictate
all of the contractors. B&M soon realised that
although it knew
exactly who it
wanted to do each
of the elements,
it needed someone
pull it all together and
coordinate the project.
That’s where we stepped in: we
coordinated all of the design
and arranged contractors.
None of the work involved with
building a warehouse is rocket
science, but it’s the scale of it
that gets challenging. If one part
of the build starts to hold up the
next one, then this huge knock
on delays and costs throughout
the programme. Our role is to
coordinate the supply chain.”
Critical mass
However, could the Bedford
facility represent ‘peak
warehouse’? Have we got to the
stage where large, out-of-town
storage spaces are redundant,
with supply chains instead
B&M’s massive
new warehouse
near Bedford is
the size of 12
football pitches
needing to become more
localised and agile?
Kemp isn’t so sure. “There
is defi nitely a trend towards
size for new builds,” he explains.
“What’s driving that is the lack
of available space. In London
it’s down to 2% vacancy, rents
are going up – there’s less
space available and there are
fewer opportunities.”
Murray Goldrick, VP of
business development and
account management at DHL
Supply Chain, adds that while
larger warehouses are still in
vogue, he is seeing a move
towards local hubs to service
individual towns or regions –
largely caused by online retail
giants like Amazon. “There are
two ends of the scale,” he says.
“At one end, there is a drive
towards larger facilities. We
defi nitely see that from real
estate investors specifi cally;
they’re looking for fewer
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