Up to 120 new jobs are being created with the opening of Royal Mail’s new worldwide parcel depot just opened in east London.

The massive 100,000sq ft Parcelforce site at Beckton, just off the A13, is part of Royal Mail’s UK-wide expansion programme and is expected to create 200 jobs over the next three years.

It is part of Royal Mail’s strategy to expand its parcels businesses in Britain and abroad in the face of tough global competition from commercial rivals such as FedEx and DHL.

Parcelforce Worldwide’s east London operation currently employs around 80 people.

But this is expected to more than double by 2016 as the number of parcels the depot will handle increases.

Parcelforce Operations Director Peter Fuller said: “The creation of 120 new jobs enables us to handle more parcels while making sure we continue the level of service in east London and across the UK.”

The new depot at the Gemini Business Park in Hornet Way, sandwiched between Beckton’s gasworks and the massive Northern Outfall sewage works, has the capacity to hold up to 111 vehicles and handle 30,000 parcels a day.

It also has four times the floorspace of the Romford depot it replaces—aimed at the growing demand in the business-to-business, business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer parcels markets.

The volume of Royal Mail’s parcel traffic grew five per cent during the last financial year to 1,064 million items.