Plans to extend Whitley Gillette offices for 300 extra staff
Proctor and Gamble, which owns Gillette, wants planning permission to build new laboratories, offices and a multi storey car park
Nathan John Hyde
Gillette in Basingstoke Road (Image: Trinity Mirror Southern)
Up to 300 staff could soon start work at Reading's Gillette headquarters if the company gets permission to build a new research and development laboratory.
Proctor and Gamble, which owns Gillette, has applied for planning permission to extend its building in Basingstoke Road, Whitley, and build a research facility, offices, a warehouse and a multi-storey car park.
It is also looking to demolish the 'return wing' and a ground floor security building to make way for the new buildings.
The company produces and develops a wide range of products and tests razors at its Reading base, where around 200 employees work.
But the planning documents submitted to Reading Borough Council state that if the development goes ahead "the number of staff would increase from current ca 200 to a maximum of 500".
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Proctor and Gamble want to move 250 employees from its Greater London Innovation Centre in Egham to its Reading base once it has been expanded and refurbished, to "allow consolidation of activities".
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The council's planning applications committee is due to decide whether to approve or reject the plans at a meeting on Wednesday, February 8.
Plans for Gillette Building in Whitley (Image: UGCTMS)
The company is planning to build a high quality research facility with 56 laboratory units that enables its scientists to "thrive in an increasingly competitive world".
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In the planning application, it says it is aiming to create "a well-designed, and well-constructed facility, providing a suitable environment to meet the challenges of the ever growing and changing commercial sector".
The new lab facilities would be housed inside a two-storey building that also contains offices.
There are also plans to build a multi-storey car park with 190 spaces and redevelop the building known as the "Atrium", which separates the labs and offices.
The company wants it to house "floating pods" which will be suspended high up and used as collaboration spaces.
South Reading