Published at 11:38, Tuesday, 15 January 2013

A MASSIVE investment is set to create up to 600 jobs in South Cumbria.

Lakeland Ltd’s distribution centre in Kendal will be expanded as part of a £10m investment.

The firm’s 60 high street locations nationwide will be joined by new stores in Milton Keynes, Wimbledon and Stirling, as well as a second store in Edinburgh.

It is planning to grow this number by as much as 50 per cent over the next five years to around 100 UK stores.

Business is booming for the firm with 2012 sales said to be the best in the company’s 60-year history, partly due to the resurgence of home baking.

With demand for its products growing rapidly and the popularity of the Lakeland brand at an all-time high, the company sees this investment as a necessity in order to allow further growth at home and abroad.

The decision to develop the Lakeland Distribution Centre in Kendal is designed to support Lakeland’s planned growth in the UK and internationally.

Development of the Kendal site has been ongoing for several years.

It has now reached a stage where the directors have committed to the £10m build, and are seeking tenders from a small number of selected construction companies based in the North West.

The Kendal site is seen as the engine room of the company, with goods ordered via its website and from its range of catalogues picked, packed and posted to customers from this location.

It is also from here that the company supplies its ever-increasing network of stores, nationally and internationally.

Sam Rayner, managing director, said: “We have an incredibly loyal and industrious workforce here in Cumbria.

“It is right for us to expand here. The company was founded in the Lake District and that is where our heart is. The infrastructure is already in place and it makes perfect sense for us to take this exciting step and to expand in this way.”

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk