OMEGA: Site promises more than just warehousing jobs (From Warrington Guardian)

OMEGA: Site promises more than just warehousing jobs

10:00am Thursday 28th February 2013 in News

WARRINGTON Borough Council’s interim chief executive Steven Broomhead believes Omega’s planned logistics centres will bring more than just low skilled warehousing jobs into area.

Proposals revealed at public consultations earlier this month indicated that a 400,000 sqft distribution centre, set to be one of the largest in the country, is planned for a site on Omega South to add to the three currently planned for the North site.

It is hoped the proposed centre, funded by up to £90million of investment, will bring 800 extra jobs into the area to add to the estimated 1,500 new jobs created by the developments on Omega North, such as the Brakes site which is set for completion in August.

The new site is for an international, supermarket company the Warrington Guardian understands.

It is also hoped that as many as 1,000 short-term construction jobs will also be created on both the North and South sites.

Worried residents and campaigners believe that low skilled, low paid warehouse work will not offer sustainable careers for local people in the future, but Mr Broomhead and Omega spokesmen believe a much wider range of career choices will be on offer if the plans come to fruition.

“It is not all minimum wage, there is a large range of pay rates and it is a myth that those jobs in logistics are all bottom end jobs, they are not,” said Broomhead.

Andrew Sutherland, of Omega Warrington Limited, added: “There is a lot of automated equipment going into this site; it is a very sophisticated building.

“It will be cutting edge technology and there is significant skilled job creation as a result.”

Up to 85,000sqft of office space is also set to be provided to the logistics businesses, with Omega stating that ‘a range of job opportunities from management and office work, through to highly technical jobs in logistics and on to warehouse operations, vehicle maintenance, cleaning, catering and driving’ will be on offer.