SMART STORAGE IN £1.3 MILLION LAUNCH IN WIDNES

Smart Storage is investing £1.34million in transforming a former paper bag factory in the town into a giant self-storage unit.

Initially, the site in Hutchinson Street will have 10,000 sq ft of space but this will grow to more than 40,000 sq ft.

The Widnes expansion follows successful launches in Wirral and Liverpool during the past two years. Further units are set to be rolled out elsewhere in the North of England during the rest of 2007.

Smart Storage is already taking bookings ahead of its opening in the middle of August.

The company’s roll-out is being jointly funded by Bridges Ventures and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Jon Wyles, Managing Director, said: “We are thrilled with the site we have found in Widnes. It has a high profile location overlooking the A568 filter road on to the Runcorn Bridge which apparently carries 90,000 vehicles a day!

“In addition to our launch in Widnes, we are expanding in Wirral and Liverpool and looking at further locations in the North West.

Self-storage is massive in the United States with more than 38,000 sites across the country, but has only recently started to take off in the UK.

The company aims to attract domestic and commercial customers from the surrounding area.

Jon said: “We expect about 70 per cent of our customer base to be residential and the rest commercial.

“Our customers include people moving home and storing the contents of their house or those just wanting a good clearout.

“We get people wanting to store all sorts of items from golf clubs and skis to wine collections and old books.

“We also work with a lot of professional firms wanting to store documents in a clean, dry and secure environment as well as those in the construction industry.”

Smart Storage customers have their own key and can access their rooms at any time during opening hours.

Each customer is given their own unique pin number to enter their storage room and then re-enter the number on leaving to reactivate the alarm.

Each unit is fully covered by CCTV and the intruder alarm is linked to the police.

Smart Storage’s reception is open 8-6 Monday to Friday, 9-5 on Saturday and 10-4 on Sundays, with 24-hour access available upon request.