23/10/2008

GEODIS CALBERSON BRIDGES THE GAP WITH NEW LARGER HUB FOR DAILY DEPARTURES

Local warehousing ensures complete domestic and international service offering
Leading international logistics solutions provider Geodis Calberson has relocated its hub operation for daily international groupage services to a larger 9.25 acre site at Watford Gap in Northamptonshire following a significant growth in demand.

Geodis previously ran daily departures from its facility in High Wycombe but the move to the east Midlands allows later cut-off times each night for customer collections, particularly from the Midlands and the north of England, while allowing further capacity for growth.

The High Wycombe facility will continue to handle all standard groupage freight for Europe, with twice weekly departures for all major destinations.

The Watford Gap facility, conveniently located adjacent to the M1 at Watling Park, is shared with the Geodis-owned Fortec Pallet Distribution Network, meaning it uniquely allows access to both Geodis’ domestic and European networks.

It is also located very close to Geodis’ major warehouse operation at Magna Park in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. This offers many advantages to customers as the site offers the full range of value-adding services as well as storage, and once shipments are called off there are regular shuttles linking the site with the Watford Gap hub, where they are split for transport domestically or internationally through Geodis’ European network.

Laurie Doe, Commercial Director of Geodis Calberson, explained: “Having our main UK warehousing facility so close to our main hub handling both UK and international departures is a major benefit to customers, particularly those using the UK as a distribution centre, as they can store all goods at a single place whether their eventual destination is domestic or overseas.

“We believe this arrangement to be unique in the UK logistics and transport sector - but it does clearly demonstrate the strategic thinking behind moving our daily international groupage services to Watford Gap as it enables connections that weren’t previously possible, giving companies from right across the UK access to daily departures.

“Sharing the building with Fortec also allows customers to benefit from both national and international pallet distribution from a single point of access. With the quality of service offered through both Fortec and Geodis through state of the art scanning, and IT systems offering class-leading track and trace Europe-wide, Geodis is ideally positioned to offer a complete logistics and distribution service via Magna Park and Watford Gap.”