Walkers Transport invests £1.5m in expansion
Walkers Transport has invested more than £1.5m in relocating to new premises and expanding its fleet. The company has relocated from Rhodes Business Park in Middleton to Royle Barn Road in Rochdale, and has also purchased 23 new trailers and eight rigid trucks, bringing its overall fleet size across the Leeds and Rochdale depots to over 160 units.
This investment will help the company to double its capacity to cope with both the upcoming peak and the sustained growth plans through next year. The investment coincides with the company’s 15th year as a member of Palletways, Europe’s largest and fastest growing palletised freight network.
Walkers, a member of the Palletways UK network, said that it has experienced 25% growth over the past year following extensive investment in its sales and customer service teams. Now with new premises in Rochdale coupled with the existing transport hub in Leeds, the company is poised for continued growth in the next two years.
Walkers has also opened another new storage location in the heart of Leeds which has increased the storage capability to over 12,500 pallets at any one time.
Richard Simpson, group managing director at Walkers Transport, said the expansion will help the company to meet the growing demand for express palletised freight services across the region: “We’ve grown our operations as regional demand has increased. Our new premises will help us provide a more sophisticated service – we now have a drive-through distribution centre, can handle all pallet movements under cover and have a viewing deck for customers see the operation as it happens.
“Our new fleet, which have been commissioned in time for the autumn peak period which will come into service immediately, will help us to continue to deliver a first class reliable service and grow the 1.2m pallets we handle every year.”
