MERCHANT FOCUS: JAMES BURRELL
BURRELLS BUILDS FOR THE FUTURE IN BILLINGHAM
that could, we worked out, be put to better use by investing directly in the business. The answer came next door to the Billingham operation, where a neighbouring business – itself a James Burrell customer – had space available. The result is a site of nearly 5.5 acres with around 15,000 sq m of internal storage.
Designed around movement Head of operations Tony Hall explains that the physical redevelopment of Billingham took around 28 weeks. At its heart is the 13,400sq ft warehouse, six metres high, built on a reinforced concrete slab and equipped with roller doors at either end to improve loading efficiency.
Fiona Russelll Horne goes for a poke about at James Burrell Builders Merchant’s refurbished Billingham branch, now the biggest in the group.
B 26
uilding a bigger branch isn’t always just about getting more room to store products. For independent family-owned James Burrell Builders Merchant it meant being able to maximise efficiency and improve service to other branches as well as customers. The North East and Yorkshire builders’ merchant has transformed its Billingham operation into the biggest branch in the group, thereby creating a major distribution hub designed to strengthen stock availability, speed up deliveries and give the business the flexibility to meet whatever comes next. The company took on the four-acre site at Billingham in 2022; three years later, it’s just finished one of the most significant investments across its network. The company has added another 1.5 acres, allowing it to create a purpose-built warehouse and transform the way the branch operates.
For commercial director Rob Richardson, the scale of the expansion shows just how quickly the business outgrew its original plans. “Effectively, we had already outgrown the original four acres, which back in 2022, we never thought we would do.”
He adds that the growth, however, was not simply about finding somewhere to put more products. “The additional space gave us an opportunity to rethink the role Billingham could play within the branch network ,” something that’s particularly relevant in an industry where stock availability and supply- chain resilience have become increasingly important.
The roots of the project go back to the company’s Stockton-on-Tees branch, and the additional warehouse that had been rented out next door. “It soon became clear that we were outgrowing that facility,” Rob Richardson says. “What we were spending on
It’s all designed around logistics rather than simply storage. The logistics team worked with the contractor to determine how the site could be laid out to maximise efficiency. Stock has been positioned to reduce unnecessary forklift movements, while the ability to load from both ends of the main warehouse improves the flow of vehicles and materials. It is, Hall says, making a significant difference at a site operating at scale: reduce wasted movement, reduce wasted time and keep control of costs.
Customer access has also been improved, as the expansion has not just been about stock and distribution. Loading areas have been revised to make it easier for larger customers and supplier vehicles to get on and off site quickly.
The company has also added solar panels to the roof, providing another efficiency gain – particularly given the extensive use of electric forklifts across the operation. Billingham now has eight wagons operating from the site for customer deliveries, with most deliveries made on a next-day basis.
The company has three branches in Yorkshire: Ossett, Rotherham and York; Billingham and Stockton service the Teesside area, while Sunderland, Newcastle, Gateshead – where the head office is located – and Morpeth look after the County Durham,
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net September 2026
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
