One of the fastest growing independent logistics operators in the UK drives into Gatwick

This year, Europa Worldwide Group has invested three million pounds in increasing its UK and European road freight sales network for the Europa Road division.

Europa Worldwide Group is an ambitious independent logistics operator with three divisions, Europa Road, Europa Air & Sea, and Europa Warehouse, and has featured in The Sunday Times Top Track 250 for the third time. The Group employs over 1,300 people across the UK, Belgium, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai and South Africa, and recently announced a record turnover of £316m for its last year up to the end of August 2022.

The branch is situated at the Regus offices at Gatwick Airport Manor Royal, which is just two miles from both Gatwick Airport and the M23, which serves as a main transport road into and out of London.

The new branch announcement comes at a time when Gatwick airport has recently submitted plans to use its back-up Northern Runway on a regular basis alongside its existing main runway, with a target start date of 2029. If plans are approved, cargo volumes are expected to reach 350,000 tonnes per year by 2047, up from around 150,000 tonnes at present. Following Heathrow’s hugely successful road freight branch, the Gatwick office will also serve to continue to support air cargo customers.

Data from ONS also revealed that online retailing sales volumes saw a monthly contraction of 2.6 per cent in August 2022, following an increase of 4.8 per cent in July 2022. Despite this fall, online sales volumes are 24.4 per cent above their pre-Covid-19 February 2020 levels, indicating a promising upward trajectory for the online retailing space.It also reported that imports increased to £57.0 billion, while exports of services increased to £93.3 billion in the three months to August 2022.

Europa Road Gatwick will open on January 1 2023 with a team of five, and will be headed up by Branch Manager Carys Shears with plans to double the office headcount by the end of 2023. Carys, who has been promoted from her existing role of Regional Account Manager, joins the new branch with eight years management experience from the likes of Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer.

This investment in Gatwick is part of Europa Road’s strategic growth plan announced by its Branch Network and Sales Director, Adrian Redmile whose ambition is to grow Europa’s European road freight division.

Adrian Redmile, Branch Network and Sales Director commented: “Opening our new branch in Gatwick is an exciting step forward as we continue to increase our European footprint. The recent announcement of investment into national infrastructure in and around the Gatwick area will be of huge benefit to our customers within the road freight division.“We recognise that physical presence within an area helps to solidify good customer service, boost engagement, and create loyalty all of which are vital to the daily operating processes at Europa Road. Having a local team also means we will be able to support Gatwick’s growing supply chain and support them with import and export – specifically on our pan European daily services. The businesses growth has gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months, and I look forward to the continued success as we work to deliver our complete logistics solutions.”

Europa is also opening another site in Dublin, Ireland at the same time.

The Europa Road division provides market leading European road freight services, operating the UK’s largest European groupage hub which is situated in Dartford, England. Its network of 18 UK branches trunk into Dartford, from where freight connects with daily, direct services to 30 continental hubs.

The last few years has been one of major investment and growth for Europa Road which has seen Europa Road invest over £5m in Europa Flow – an innovative product which successfully allows goods to move quickly and efficiently between the UK and EU with minimal delays.