Sport firm to create hundreds of jobs in Wolverhampton warehouse move

The company, which specialises in selling bikes, cycling and triathlon accessories, is to move into the huge Citadel Logistics Centre in Bilston from its current 95,000 sq ft site in Portsmouth.

The firm will occupy the £20million complex which has been empty for the past five years and is the size of three football pitches.

The move will be a welcome boost to the city's economy after Caterpillar and Timken announced nearly 300 job losses in the city within a week of each other earlier in the summer.

James Murray, spokesman for Bridgepoint, which bought the majority shareholding in Wiggle in 2011, said: "It didn't make sense to have a distribution centre located at one end of the country. This new site is right in the middle.

"At this stage it is expected to create several hundred posts over the next two years.

"The total will depend on the number of people who transfer from Portsmouth. Consultation with the workforce there has yet to take place," he added.

The site includes 20,000 sq ft of offices and 95 lorry parking spaces, and is owned by property group Goodman UK Logisitics who have been trying to find a tenant since July 2009.

The logistics hub received £3m of funding from the former Advantage West Midlands organisation. It is two miles from Junction 10 of the M6.

Nicholas Pink, operations and programme director of Wiggle, said. "We are delighted to confirm our move to such a prestigious development. The move demonstrates Wiggle's continuous growth and ambition. We believe the location and space of the new warehouse will provide Wiggle with a competitive advantage as we scale up our operations in the UK and overseas."

The business, which currently employs over 350 in Portsmouth and stock of two million items, has had two years of record breaking sales and revenue growth and now serves more than a million customers in more than 70 countries.

It has said that it will keep its head office in Portsmouth and will consider relocating staff to the new site.

Wiggle, which began as a bike shop called Butlers in 1920 and went online in 1999, has said it was unlikely any redundancies would be implement before next summer.

Charles Crossland, managing director of Goodman, said: "We're delighted to welcome Wiggle to Citadel, which demonstrates Goodman's ability to respond quickly to the needs of our customers. Good quality sites like Citadel are able to boost the local economy by attracting major businesses like Wiggle and in turn creating new employment opportunities.

"This deal also highlights the demand for quality logistics space in this part of the UK, with strong customer take-up reflecting the diminishing supply of prime, well located facilities, such as Citadel."

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