PLANS for a brand-new squeaky-clean office and warehouse in Tiverton have been submitted by smiley sponge firm Scrub Daddy.

The firm is already based in the town’s Lowman Way, where it has operated from since 2015, but it has outgrown the offices there and now needs a new home.

Documents submitted with the plans state that “no suitable building exists locally” that would allow the business to stay in Mid Devon.

The proposed site would be near the A361 on land off Barberry Way, and forms part of a wider approved plan that encompasses the Tiverton eastern urban extension.

Back in 2017, approval was given to housing development for up to 700 properties and 22,000 square metre of employment land. The prospective Scrub Daddy offices and warehouse would take around a fifth of the employment land included in the wider scheme.

The firm, which is an American business first launched there in 2012 by Aaron Krause, said it was having to take various measures just to keep up with demand and the ability for its current premises to cope.

It has built a temporary prefabricated unit on its warehouse mezzanine, and moved a meeting room, but stated that each short-term measure like this costs around £25,000-£30,000 even though it doesn’t address the long-term issues.

“Currently, stock is split across several sites as the current warehouse cannot accommodate the full extent of the company’s stock,” the firm stated in planning documents.

“Inventory is kept at the Tiverton premises and at third-party storage, with a further external site used at times. Evidently, moving stock between sites adds handling, transport and cost.

“The business expects its headcount to roughly double over the next three to six years.

“Most of that growth will be office-based roles in commercial, finance, supply chain, marketing and IT, driven by expansion in the European Union.

“The current site cannot accommodate it. The new building brings the operation onto one site. It will combine offices, warehousing, assembly and dispatch in a single purpose-built facility.”

It added that it had scoped out some other possible locations, including Cullompton, South Molton, Wellington and Exeter’s Marsh Barton, but that “none were considered suitable”.

“The company’s clear preference is to stay in the district, where its workforce lives,” it added.

With annual turnover of between £25 million-£30 million, the business said it expects its current 75-strong workforce to nearly double to 140 in the coming years.

The firm said the building would be its UK and European headquarters “for the long term” if approved, and that the building was designed as a “flagship headquarters”, and was “not a typical shed-style warehouse”.

Mid Devon District Council will decide whether to give the scheme permission, although no date for a decision has yet been published.