Logistics key to Wolseley UK transformation plan

The resulting transformation plan and £100m investment will provide two distinct customer propositions: one dedicated to the needs of medium and large specialist trade customers and one for small specialist trade customers.

This will include creating new transport hub locations to deliver products nationwide with consistently high standards of both branch replenishment stock and customer orders to meet demand. Efficiency savings will be generated from better stock management across the network.

The plan will result in the closure of around 80 branches across the UK and up to 800 redundancies.

The company says: "The reorganisation of our logistics and supply chain network, which we plan to complete over the next two years, will result in lower overall capacity requirements in our UK supply chain. This will enable us to operate from three regional distribution centres in the UK instead of four which will significantly reduce our operating costs. On this basis, we propose to assess the feasibility of our Worcester DC as the changes in our plan are put in place. This means that whatever the outcome of the feasibility assessment, we believe that this part of our strategy will not impact roles or the number of roles until 2018."

A period of consultation will now commence at affected sites. Overall, the reorganisation will take two to three years to complete and is expected to deliver annualised cost savings of £25 million to £30 million.