TELECOMMUNICATIONS giant Virgin Media has this week opened its new headquarters in Reading.
The multi-million pound investment will see as many as 1,500 staff based in the town's Green Park.
The new office incorporates accessible and sustainable design features with measures in place to dramatically reduce single-use plastics.
Up to 1,500 staff will be based at the 120,000 square feet office.
The office is the size of roughly 160 average-sized UK homes and contains 1,200 desks, breakout areas, meeting rooms, a staff restaurant and separate barista coffee shop.
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The state-of-the-art office boasts an innovative design with spaces that encourage team-work and collaboration, quiet areas for reflection and playful Virgin features such as a super-sized glitter ball in the restaurant.
Significant investment has gone into setting high sustainability standards for the Brook Drive site.
New measures are being put in place to dramatically reduce the amount of single-use plastic consumed in the building.
When rolled out in the New Year across the wider Virgin Media estate, this could mean up to three million fewer single-use plastic items are used every year.
Bill Castell, acting chief financial officer at Virgin Media, said: "We've invested millions of pounds in our new HQ to create a state-of-the-art office and bring more than a thousand jobs to Reading.
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"This comes on top of our recent investment to bring the fastest gigabit broadband speeds to residents across Reading, something we'll deliver across our entire network by the end of 2021.
"This new site provides our people with a next-generation work environment to inspire creativity and help Virgin Media to keep growing and give our customers cutting-edge products and services."
The move is part of Virgin Media's multi-million pound property investment programme, which is providing thousands of staff with better quality working environments.
The site is powered by Virgin Media's hyperfast connectivity with more than 150 miles of data cables spanning the entire building.
Last week, Virgin Media switched on the UK’s fastest gigabit home broadband service in Reading and towns across Berkshire, Hampshire and Buckinghamshire. The new Gig1 service offers connectivity 25 times faster than Reading's average broadband speed and was launched as part of Virgin Media’s plan to bring gigabit speeds to nearly 15 million homes by the end of 2021.
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