UK - Briggs Equipment UK is the national distributor of Hyster and Yale Europe materials handling equipment, fork lift trucks and associated products, both well known to the British warehouse community. Now the company is to close its regional centre on the Old Boston Trading Estate in Haydock and relocate all personnel to the new Empress Park estate, a stone's throw from the old facility, with the intention of increasing the company’s presence in the port and freight terminal sector.

The new property will be a hub for both the workshop and field based engineering teams, along with office-based staff in the North. Briggs Equipment says it has designed a facility that not only satisfies its current requirements but will also meet the company's future needs, with storage space for up to 600 forklift trucks and a 3,822 square metre workshop and loading bays for four HGVs.

Staff will be catered for with 75 parking spaces and a spacious and modern office providing meeting/training rooms, break-out areas and a staff restaurant. Construction of the steel framework has been completed, including support rails for the new 10 tonne workshop crane, the largest capacity crane across all of Briggs Equipment's regional facilities, and roof cladding is now underway.

The new flagship building will house a team of engineers, office support staff and field based personnel, and will also be an ideal venue for customer meetings and allow for in-depth demonstrations of a wide variety of materials handling equipment. Briggs Equipment's managing director Richard Close said:

"The construction of our new facility represents an important milestone in development of our business. It will deliver operational efficiencies that offer improved service and support for our customers. In particular, the site's reinforced foundations will enable us to store and prepare higher volumes of big trucks weighing up to 90 tonnes. This will be a major advantage as we continue to develop our port and freight terminal business."