Work set to start on new warehouse as part of £4m expansion plan at Valentine Clays

Article taken from The Sentinel, read the original article here: https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/work-starts-new-warehouse-part-4943975

Clay manufacturer Valentine Clays has revealed work is set to start on a the construction of a huge new warehouse at its Stoke-on-Trent headquarters – as part of a multi-million pound expansion plan.

The manufacturer is building a new 17,000 sq ft production facility at its Valentine Way base to support its plans for growth.

The building – which is expected to be completed by late summer – is being constructed four years after the company moved to its new site in Fenton, which is home to its headquarters, distribution operations and ceramics centre.

It is the second phase of its £4 million expansion plan to bring all of its business onto a single site.

The new warehouse will help the company to increase production capacity and meet the current demands of the industry.

It will also lead to the creation of around six new jobs at Valentine Clays.

Hannah Ault, director at Valentine Clays, said: “We have worked extremely hard over the past few year’s focusing on our business growth and it’s exciting to be in a position to complete the next stage of our expansion plans that are aimed at helping our industry to grow.

“Valentine Clays has an ambitious expansion plan, and the continued development of the Fenton site is vital to our aims to increase sales, production and storage capacity and to create new processes to help develop new products.

“Our new production facility will enable us to fulfil the demands that we are currently seeing from our customers worldwide.”

Hannah added: “Although Covid has proved challenging for our business we have also seen positive sale increases over previous months, everyone seems to be making from home, and it has also enabled us to focus on restructure and growth.

“Being a proud local supporter, we were delighted to have appointed Intium Construction and other design team members to help to complete our growth plans to support our historic industry and county.”

Intium Construction officially starts work onsite on February 1 and will be supported by Etruria-based project management company Prosurv Consult as well as architects Hulme Upright, services engineer Hopkins Coats and structrual engineering firm C2C Consulting on the project.

Andrew Slaney, managing director of Intium Construction, said: “We are all very thrilled at Intium Construction to be part of such an exciting and local project. We have a great deal of experience with similar construction projects and look forward to realising the completion later this year.”

Richard Berry, project manager and director of Prosurv, added: “It’s been a pleasure working with Valentine Clays and their team for the past five years and we are looking forward to the completion of phase two of their plans.

“The development will provide investment into the local economy by drawing on the expertise and skills of Stoke-on-Trent’s local supply chain to construct the fantastic new facility.”