Consumer delivery specialist company Hermes has extended its infrastructure in the South West of England with a move from its parcel processing operation in Portbury near Bristol to a purpose built new facility in Avonmouth, also near Bristol.

The facility’s 50 strong team will be able to process around 9.5 million parcels a year in the new centre. The move from its 21 year old Westcountry base has been done to increase capacity in light of much larger projected parcel volumes in 2016, that reach a peak during the autumn / winter peak season.

The new centre at Avonmouth is 43,000 square feet, more than double the size of the previous unit. It has been designed to provide an ideal operational layout that allows loading on three elevations as well as more efficient working practices.

Hermes has also improved its infrastructure on the South Coast by relocating the depot in Southampton to Hedge End with its access to the M27 in 2011. This purpose built facility incorporates a number of dock levellers and drive in doors. The new centre will house a team of 60 staff and will have a capacity of up to 10.8 million parcels.

The delivery company has announced that it has begun work building a new central distribution hub in Rugby. This 270,000 Midlands Super Hub cost £31 million and will have the capacity to process and sort up to 1.1 million parcels every day.

Martijn de Lange, Chief Operating Officer at Hermes, said: “With online shopping volumes continuing to rise, carriers have a responsibility to their retail clients to continuously invest in their networks. By moving to new premises in Avonmouth and Southampton we have significantly strengthened our infrastructure which will enable us to further improve the services and solutions we provide to our customers not just in the South and South West of England, but across the whole of the UK.”