UKFast Boosts Employment with Data Centres Investment

Manchester, United Kingdom, March 25, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Leading green internet hosting company UKFast is to more than double its data centre space, creating up to 100 highly skilled jobs over the next 12 months.

With funding from The Co-operative Bank, UKFast, has acquired three properties as future data centres at Cobra Court, Trafford Park. The newly-created jobs will be based across these sites and the company's head office in Manchester's City Tower.

Founded in 1999 by Lawrence Jones and his wife and business partner Gail, UKFast provides a range of award-winning hosting solutions, servicing over 4,000 UK and international clients.

UKFast is the world's first hosting provider to be certified as 100% carbon neutral under BSI PAS 2060, which extends to the company's city centre headquarters, a training facility in Snowdon, Wales, along with the company's current data centres based at Manchester Science Park and Manchester Technopark in Manchester city centre, and a third at Cobra Court in Trafford Park.

The new data centres will be fitted out with a number of carbon efficient hosting solutions to reduce environmental impact, and will increase UKFast's storage capacity from 8,500sqft to just over 23,000sqft; more than doubling the company's hosting capacity from 9,000 to 24,000 servers. Work on the centres has already begun and they are expected to be fully operational by summer 2012.

UKFast has banked with The Co-operative Bank since August 2009 and this is the second time the Bank has provided funding for the company, which received a £665,000 loan in 2009 for the acquisition of the company's first wholly-owned data centre, also based at Cobra Court in Trafford Park.

UKFast managing director Lawrence Jones, said: "We are delighted by the support of The Co-operative Bank and the team at the Manchester CBC. They have a solid understanding of our aspirations as a business and tie-in very well with our strategy and commitment to green initiatives.

"The hosting industry consumes around the same amount of electricity on operations each year as a country the size of Argentina. This represents a substantial impact to our environment. At UKFast we believe in responsible business and are dedicated to developing new ways of working to reduce the environmental impact of our products and services.

"Our commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our business is also reflected in the design of the three new data centres, which mark the start of an exciting expansion for our company, helping us to meet the ever increasing demand for our products and services and helping to create jobs in the process."

UKFast is currently in the development stages of implementing hydro-electric projects to generate clean energy to efficiently power the company's data centres.

Dave Loughman, corporate manager at the Manchester CBC of the Bank, said: "We pride ourselves on our unique ethical positioning and lending commitment to the renewable energy, recycling and carbon reduction sectors.

"UKFast is a thriving business, which is leading the way forward in the reduction of energy consumption in its industry and we are delighted to play a role in allowing them to realise their ambitions for the future."