Retail giant John Lewis has announced that it will keep its large distribution centre in Northampton for at least the next six years.
Businesses from across the Brackmills Industrial Estate visited Parliament this week to celebrate the success of the Northampton facility and promote it on the national stage.
During the event, Steve Ward, John Lewis’s operations manager, confirmed the company had extended its contract to stay on Brackmills until at least 2019.
Discussing the firm’s decision to stay on the Northampton estate, he said: “We’ve extended our contract from 2014 to 2019, which is fantastic news, although it was quite an easy decision to make.
“Brackmills is an ideal site for John Lewis, with great road links to the rest of the country.
“We also have great staff at Brackmills who have worked there for many years and we want to keep hold of them, which is one of the reasons we’ve decided to stay in Northampton.”
During the Westminster event, MPs and business leaders heard there are currently 11,500 people employed on Brackmills at a total of 150 companies.
Addressing the politicians, Nick Lowe, the managing director of logistics firm, Dachser UK, discussed his firm’s plans to build a new headquarters on the site of Northampton’s former cattle market at Brackmills and explained how the firm planned to boost its Northampton workforce by 30 per cent by 2018.
Dachser currently employs 157 people across four sites on Brackmills. Their new headquarters on the estate is due to open in March.