PLENTY OF ROOM
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A GOOD IDEA is always worth copying, especially when it's profitable. That is as true today as it was in 1958 when Jack Barnard, garage proprietor and Foden dealer from Stowmarket, Suffolk, visited Lenham Storage in Kent.
Jack, whose family were hauliers, as well as garage proprietors, from 1929 to 1950, when their 60-vehicle fleet was nationalised, went to Lenham to sell two Fodens to Mr Tblman, Lenham's md. He came away with the idea of diversifying into warehousing, and bought a disused aircraft hangar the same year.
Today, not 20 years later, he is managing director of the largest single warehousing complex in East Anglia, one of the largest family-owned warehouse companies in the UK. The site covers 45 acres with 37,200 sqm (400,000soft) of covered accommodation. There are plans to add another 4,650 sqm (50,000sqft) this year.
His initial purchase, the aircraft hangar, at Mendlesham, Suffolk, which was made against the wishes of his family, has a capacity of 2,800 sqm (30,000sqft), and was, initially, to be used to store Cuban sugar.
Today's goods range from news and magazine print to manufactured food products. The company's services cover warehousing, local distribution, trunk haul operations and import and export traffic.
Siting the premises of the Anglia Warehousing Company at Mendlesham was more out of convenience to the proprietor than from some critical analysis of distribution demands. The hangar and Jack Barnard just happened to be there at the same time.
The growth of Felixstowe port has contributed greatly to Anglia's success story. Paper from Scandinavia bound for Fleet Street passes through the company's port warehouse. This accounts for an annual 120,000 tons of traffic at Felix