THE BOSS of a thriving York business says he needs to expand his warehouses and create 100 jobs, to keep his headquarters in the city and prevent part of the business moving to the south of England .
Jason Paver, the managing director of Pavers Shoes, is making the case in a planning application to York City Council, for its site at Northminster Business Park in Upper Poppleton.
The company wants to extend its existing warehouse of 11,275 m2 on a plot of 25,196 m2 currently used for grazing in an industrial area far from dwellings.
The application to York City Council says the new £6million building, if approved, would extend an existing building.
Northminster Business Park was developed in the mid-1990s, with cobblestones operating there since 2001, growing rapidly since, spending £10m on the site since 2018 alone.
The family business, founded by Catherine Paver in York in 1971, has grown from selling in party halls to a global retailer with over 170 stores, as well as a thriving online presence. It now employs 1,700 people nationwide, including 270 at its Northminster headquarters.
The company’s turnover has doubled from £110m in 2018, chief executive Jason Paver said, and is expected to reach £350m by 2028. Online sales were fueling this, from a tenth of sales in 2018 to more than a third today. more than half by 2028.
However, such growth meant that the headquarters had reached its “maximum operational capacity”, which is “inefficient”. If Pavers cannot expand to Northminster, he will “reluctantly” have to consider a depot in the south of England, which would have “very damaging implications” because of the extra cost it would entail.
“The proposed development is therefore vital to the continued success of our company. It will provide essential additional premises that will allow us to meet our immediate and future operational needs; consolidate all facilities on a single site; retain and increase membership; and to ensure that the company can remain based solely at our head office to deliver other significant economic benefits to York,” Mr. Paver said.
Stores, he continued, can take four-fifths of a range, while online sales require all stock to be centralized. At present, Northminster holds one million pairs of shoes, with the Cobblestones also spending an additional £250,000 a year stocking shoes in Elvington, Full Sutton and Nether Poppleton at third-party sites.
“This is clearly a very inefficient and uneconomic method of operation (in a very competitive market),” he said.
And given the company’s growth, Mr. Paver expected his storage needs to double within 5 years.
The extension would directly create up to 100 jobs at the site, including 60 office workers and 40 warehouse workers, while retaining jobs and talent in York.
He added: “If we are successful in expanding our distribution facility in York, we will also look to expand the existing offices to the east of the building, which will reinforce the company’s commitment to the City of York and provide new local employment opportunities. ”
