'Bye Bye Milton Keynes': Amazon bosses announce shock plan to close down city's massive fulfilment centre for move to Northampton
Amazon bosses have announced out of the blue their intention to close down their massive Milton Keynes fulfilment centre and move to nearby Northampton.
The Marston Gate building employs almost 600 people and has been one of the MK’s biggest employers since it opened in 1999.
It was the first site Amazon opened in the UK.
Named after the nearest international airport, LTN1, it is the hub for millions of items being stored, packed and shipped.
But in just four months’ time - by May – the centre is set to be empty, closed down, and all operations moved to a brand new £500m building in Northampton, 18 miles away. The exact address has not yet been revealed.
All MK staff will be offered the opportunity to transfer to the Northampton facility of elsewhere in the Amazon empire.
A spokesperson for Amazon said tonight (Wednesday January 14): “The building is scheduled to open in May and is around 18 miles from the Milton Keynes site. It will also be home to Amazon's latest technology, including thousands of robots and modern, spacious facilities for all our employees.”
The move will not impact upon Amazon’s sortation centre, which is in Magna Park. This receives packed parcels from across the UK and sorts them overnight into routes.
The parcels are then sent to smaller delivery stations in the region. The centre currently employs approximately 1,100 people and these jobs are unaffected by today's announcement.
The spokesperson said: "We're always evaluating our network to make sure it fits our business needs and to improve the experience for our employees and customers.
"Today we've announced a consultation on a proposal to close our fulfilment centre in Milton Keynes and to offer employees an opportunity to transfer to our brand-new site in Northampton - a larger, state-of-the-art building which will employ up to 2,000 people - or to other Amazon sites.
"Our top priority is to support our people during this process."
A collective consultation will now begin with approximately 590 employees and the company had pledged to listen to everyone's views.
“Employees would be offered an opportunity to transfer to our new Northampton site - which will be nearly four times the size in terms of workforce, employing 1,400 people initially, and rising to 2,000 - or to other Amazon sites, depending on role,” said the spokesperson,
They added: “We’re investing £40 billion in the UK over three years (2025-2027). This investment includes building a total of four new fulfilment centres (including the Northampton site), and other new delivery stations nationwide.”