Vauxhall celebrates 50 years in Luton

Employees at Vauxhall’s Parts Distribution Centre in Luton, Bedfordshire celebrated the 50^th anniversary of its opening with a specially-designed gold wrapped truck and a visit from England legend Bryan Robson.

Situated on a 70-acre site in north Luton, the one million square foot facility was one of the largest in the UK when it opened in September 1967. Approximately 200 people are employed on site across two shifts.

The warehouse holds 55,000 stocked parts and is the source warehouse for the Vivaro van that is built eight miles away, and all right hand drive specific parts. It also has access to a further 200,000 parts from the company’s central warehouse in Bochum, Germany. On average, the Luton warehouse has an output of 20,000 units per day, worth £1m, mainly to the UK and Ireland.

Vauxhall/Opel also opened the doors to its new pan-European Customer Contact Centre on the same site last year, creating 300 new jobs in Luton and the surrounding area and raising the bar for customer service and retailer support. It supports 33 countries with state-of-the-art facilities, enabling agents to deliver a world-class service to customers. For Vauxhall retailers, advisers offer advice about vehicle diagnosis, field reports and order tracking.

Colin Frasi who has over 40 years’ service at the distribution centre said, ‘It’s always been a secure, reliable job and you get to work alongside a fantastic set of colleagues. You could say the workforce is almost like a family and in some respects, it is – my father worked here before I did and I know other colleagues have family with them too.’

Peter Durham, warehouse operations manager, said, ‘We are delighted to reach the 50 year milestone here at the Luton Distribution Centre. Many of our employees have been with us for over 20 years and all bring key experience and insight every day, supporting our ambition to be the best warehouse in Europe for our new owners PSA.’