Bosch UK has opened a new state-of-the-art facility designed to provide a single northern location for Bosch, which combines Bosch Rexroth, its industrial drives and controls company, and Worcester, Bosch Group, its heating and hot-water solutions company. The site has been designed to BREEAM standards in order to minimise energy use and reduce water consumption. Bosch UK's new facility, located at Devilliers Way in Normanton, near Wakefield, has been established in order to consolidate three Bosch sites in the North of England into a single location. The facility, built on a 3.6 acre site – equivalent to two football pitches – will provide customer service and support to Bosch Rexroth's mechanical engineering customers as well as training to its installers in the heating and hot-water sector. At the new facility, Bosch Rexroth will design and manufacture hydraulic systems for many industry sectors; including marine, offshore and bulk materials handling. The site will also be a base for hydraulic training and courses that will be run throughout the year. It has a fully equipped 21,150 sq ft workshop and test site, to service and repair hydraulic equipment, both at the site and in the field, for customers in the UK and overseas. It also has a 9300 sq ft training area including seminar rooms plus ample office space. The facility meets disability requirements by including a lift, disabled toilet and height adjustable desks. Sustainability The Wakefield facility also has a strong energy efficiency focus. It is an environmentally sustainable building that has been designed and built to BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) standards. BREEAM sets the standard for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation. In order to comply with BREEAM standards, the site has been designed to minimise energy use through thermal loss. To this end, the facility includes: •\tA high efficiency boiler. •\tSolar PV panels. •\tIntelligent low-energy lighting systems, including automatic sensing lights. •\tExtensive metering. •\tMotion sensor taps that turn off once an employee has moved away from the sink area. Opening Bosch's new site in Wakefield, Peter Fouquet, president of Bosch in the UK, commented: "This new facility is a major investment for Bosch and represents not only our commitment to the region, but is also part of our continued drive to provide enhanced service and training to our customers. This new addition brings the total number of Bosch sites in the UK to 42. Continued UK investment Fouquet continued: "At Bosch we are truly committed to skills development of the workforce and that is why we want to continue to invest in the UK, especially when it comes to service and training.The opening of this site reaffirms our commitment. "At the heart of the new facility is training and support for our customers. Whether our customer is a mechanical engineer, an installer or an apprentice at the very start of his or her career, this new facility will provide the comprehensive training and support programmes, which make a major contribution to an individual's professional skills development." Fouquet concluded: "Our aim at Bosch is to pass on our knowledge and expertise to our customers, through our products and our after-sales support. I am delighted to open this new facility which combines our commitment to customer support and environmental sustainability in one location." This new site is the latest addition to Bosch's expansion drive in the UK. The company recently opened two engineering sites in the Midlands for its automotive business and another site in Uxbridge, Middlesex which is dedicated to providing training to the automotive aftermarket sector. Photo caption: The new facility was officially opened by (left to right): councillor Jacqueline Williams; Graham Rowell, finance director at Bosch Rexroth; Roger Marsh, chair of Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership; Peter Fouquet, president of Bosch UK; and Carl Arntzen, managing director of Worcester, Bosch Group.