Timber garden products supplier Direct Timber Ltd has invested £2.5m in a new site in Leicestershire which will help it treble fencing panel production.

The eight and-a-half acre site, which will become the company’s headquarters, also provides extensive storage space for its range of imported decorative timber products.

Direct Timber is keeping its original Coalville premises and will invest a further £500,000 extending the new site at The Warrens, Warren Park Way, Enderby.

When complete this will give the company a weekly production of 50,000 fencing panels. Currently, 12,000 panels are being manufactured weekly at Coalville and 10,000 at Enderby.

The company also intends to pressure-treat its products for the first time in a tank sited at Enderby.

&#8220Everything will be pressure-treated, not just fencing panels. ”

Mike Pitcher, Direct Timber UK sales manager

Mike Pitcher, the company’s UK sales manager, said: “Everything will be pressure-treated, not just fencing panels. All products will have a uniform colour.”

He said the company has seen a strong growth in the market for decorative timber garden products during the past 18 months, with sales now on a par with that of fencing panels.

Mr Pitcher said Direct Timber will continue its sales focus on independent garden centres and merchants.