Motor vehicle manufacturer Nissan will create up to 4,000 jobs through the sale of land and creation of a new logistics centre at its Sunderland site.
The car giant is building a £4.5m extension to its Wearside plant, and has sold a 45-acre parcel of land in the southern area of the site to UK property developers, Wilton and Clugston, to fund the project.
Wilton and Clugston will develop a hotel, light industrial buildings, warehouses, a motor dealership, shops and leisure facilities.
Construction work on the 20,000-square-metre logistics centre will start later this month, and is scheduled to be fully operational by February 2008. The building will process thousands of parts annually from abroad, and will be located close to the existing factory, with the aim of creating a more efficient operation.
Trevor Mann, senior vice-president of manufacturing, Europe, said: “The new centre will handle inbound parts for the Sunderland plant. Increasingly, these are coming from further afield, in bulk volume.
“By bulk sourcing parts, we are making significant total cost savings, which helps our plant to improve its competitiveness. This in turn puts us in a stronger position when bidding for future models.”
