Meet the hundreds of clever little robots who deal with your Amazon orders in Milton Keynes

Amazon bosses have given the Citizen a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of their high tech sorting centre in Magna Park.

And they’ve introduced some of their hardest workers – 850 little blue robots who whizz around ensuring hundreds of thousands of packages get to the right place every day.

The massive Magna Park warehouse employs hundreds of staff, but still relies upon the robots for a vital role.

"A member of staff places one parcel on top of each robot, which then makes its way to the correct sorting chute for the area of the country where that parcel is bound,” said a spokesman.

"The robots occupy a large mezzanine floor and use AI technology to map out their routes as they move around,” he said.

"Only trained technicians are allowed on the floor for maintenance. There are also charging points and the robots take themselves to these spots when they know they’re running low on power.”

The Magna Park centre is one of only two ‘sort centres’ of its kind in the country and is by far the largest.

It’s also home to some of Amazon’s first electric HGVs in the UK as well as more than 3,600 solar panels, which make up one of the largest rooftop arrays in Amazon’s UK and European network.

Eventually, the site will be entirely powered by the solar panels, including robot charging and e-HGV charging.

Sort centres such as Magna Park bridge the gap in Amazon’s network between fulfilment centres, where millions of items are stored, and delivery stations.

Caolan Doyle-Morrill, site leader, said: “Our Milton Keynes sort centre really is leading the way in Amazon innovation. Since opening we’ve gone from strength to strength and we’re now very proud to be home to some of Amazon’s first e-HGVs. These vehicles mark an important step towards our goal to become net zero by 2040.

“We will continue to invest; both in technology and in training for our people. We have more than 500 local employees here now and we want to continue hiring and providing great jobs to the local community.”