British retailer John Lewis has closed its Blakelands National Distribution centre after more than 40 years as it prepares to open its nearby Magna Park 3 site with a focus on automation.

Sarah Payne, head of operations at the company, announced Milton Keynes’ site closure on LinkedIn, calling it a “bittersweet day”. She added that though it is sad to lose a site that has been operational for so long, it forms part of a “groundbreaking” move for automation at Magna Park 3, also in Milton Keynes.

The new site is key to future-proofing and enhancing the efficiency of the company’s operations, she added.

The majority of employees at the Blakelands site have been retained by the company, securing roles in other parts of the John Lewis distribution network, which Payne said was “a testament to the professionalism and dedication of all involved”.

John Lewis has operated distribution centres at Magna Park since 2009, and hailed it at the time as a revolutionary development in its supply network.

The new site forms part of John Lewis’s years-long £800 million transformation programme, which has seen the retailer upgrade stores, relaunch its café concept and expand logistics capacities across its network.

The company is also set to become one of the first major UK retailers to integrate its product offerings with AI chatbots including ChatGPT and Google Gemini. It announced in March that it would extend its partnership with digital commerce platform commercetools to support this integration, which is expected to come to fruition later this year.

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