Take up of warehouse space in Midlands unprecedented

Unprecedented demand for warehousing in the Midlands saw a 70 per cent increase in take-up in 2016 compared to 2015 according to research by Avison Young.

Completed year-end figures show take up of Grade A facilities over 100,000 sq ft total 13.265 million sq ft compared to 7.81 million sq ft in 2015.

The marked uplift included the pre-letting of a 1.1 million sq ft facility to Amazon in Leicester as well as deals such as Screwfix taking 551,000 sq ft at Fradley Park, Great Bear taking 480,000 sq ft at Markham Vale and Jaguar Land Rover scooping 850,000 sq ft for a manufacturing plant at Wolverhampton.

Total number of deals for 2016 sat at 54 compared to 35 deals in 2015. Of the 7.17 million sq ft of Grade A space left in 38 buildings across the region, 60 per cent are speculative. This equates to just over six months supply based on last years take up.

“Tight supply is expected to lead to further speculative development activity, although the market is constrained by the number of prime ready-to-go sites,” said Robert Rae, principal and managing director at Avison Young.

“New development sites are predominantly on greenfield land and require lengthy promotion through the planning system and inevitably involve the introduction of complex infrastructure. This means that replacing this year’s take-up, which equates to 600 acres, will be challenging.”