Work begins on pharmacy chain’s £20m robot-led HQ
Peak Pharmacy’s new 113,000 sq ft robot-led headquarters has taken a step forward after ground was officially broken at the site.
The £20m building in Bolsover, North Derbyshire is expected to house 100 staff and could potentially transform the business.
Chesterfield-based Peak says the development will be dedicated to handling prescriptions and despatching medicine to its network of 150 community pharmacies.
St Francis Group, ALMCOR and main contractor MCS Construction have now begun work on the site, which is part of the Horizon 29 scheme at Markham Vale near Junction 29A of the M1.
The facility, which will be called the Pharmacy Service Centre, is located on the site of the former Coalite coking plant.
It will use state-of-the-art robotics and automated systems to handle over 400,000 medicines and other prescribed items every month – equating to 20,000 a day, or more than 40 every minute.
The project is expected to take 9 months to complete, with opening scheduled for April next year.
Northeast Derbyshire District Council, Bolsover District Council, Derbyshire County Council and the D2N2 LEP have all lent their support to the project.
Gareth Williams, development director at St Francis Group, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have formally marked the start of works onsite and to be building this fantastic new facility for fast-growing customer Peak Pharmacy with the team onsite already having made significant progress.
“This new facility serves as the first unit to be built at Horizon 29, welcoming our first occupier. Since we commenced the extensive remediation of the site interest in the scheme has been extensive and the recent sale by the JV of 80 acres of land to BentallGreenOak for the speculative development of 1.2 million sq ft of warehouse and logistics space speaks to that.
“We look forward to working with the team at Peak Pharmacy and delivering a first-class facility next year.”
Peak Pharmacy’s managing director Joe Cattee added: “These are ambitious plans for our company, staff and customers – in the face of a rapidly changing pharmacy landscape.
“This new facility will be truly transformational for us. We’re investing now to future-proof our business, so that we can continue to provide great local customer service which means so much to us.
“We are very pleased to be working with St Francis and ALMCOR and the full project team and look forward to seeing the development rise out of the ground as it happens.”
