A MAJOR distribution centre for publishing company Hachette UK is to officially open in Didcot.

This state-of-the-art distribution centre – which is the most sophisticated of its kind in Europe – is being officially opened on Tuesday.

Hachette UK is the second largest book publishing group in the UK.

The company website said: “ We ship in excess of 60 million books globally each year and supply one out of every four books to the UK trade.”

The Hely Hutchinson Centre will distribute all the books published by the group and a number of third party publishing clients.

It is the company’s ultimate ambition to distribute one in every two books sold in the UK to customers around the world.

The new facility will become Hachette UK’s sole distribution centre and the publishers currently served by LBS and Bookpoint will migrate to it as part of a managed transition between 2018 and 2020.

Hachette provides distribution services to over 45 publishers.

The new 240,000 sq ft facility, close to Milton Park, has been named after former chief executive Tim Hely Hutchinson.

Building work started on the project in 2016.

Hachette UK has been hiring staff to work at the new centre.