Logistics Property Regional Focus EAST MIDLANDS GOLDEN TRIANGLE
“The combined effect of big plans, big hopes and a rather wobbly economy has been to leave East Midlands property folk with a strong sense of ‘not quite yet’”
The project is already registered with the government planning officers, but no formal application is expected until early 2013. Progress on a fourth large project – the extension of Magna Park to include a new Eddie Stobart depot – has stalled. Developers Gazeley say they will submit revised plans for a 16-acre Eddie Stobart HGV lorry park at Magna Park, Leicester, after local council officials threatened to turn the scheme down. Last November, Stobart bought the 275,000 sq ft Solar unit at Magna Park in a deal with Gazeley estimated to be worth around £15m. Earlier this year Stobart won permission to build a new 107,000 sq ft warehouse on the site
LOGISTICS PROPERTY NEWS Rents rise near Heathrow
Rents are rising as demand for warehouses in West London and the Thames Valley soars ahead of new government proposals for Heathrow airport. Research from surveyor Jones Lang LaSalle shows that occupier take-up in the Reading to Heathrow area hit a 17-year high last year, with some 6.1m sq ft taken up. JLL says that as a result rents have begun to rise in Park Royal, Slough and Reading. The 2011 take-up figure was 45% up on 2010 and 90% higher than the recession year of 2009. The stock of newly-built floorspace available for letting fell sharply, down 41% to 1.5m sq ft.
The future of the warehouse market is likely to be heavily influenced by the government’s attitude to expansion at Heathrow airport. A white paper is expected to be published this summer. n
www.joneslanglasalle.co.uk
Yearsley to create £20m ‘superhub’ at Hareshill
Yearsley, the Manchester-based frozen and chilled food distributor, is to expand its Greater Manchester base by creating a £20m superhub. The firm says a 13.6 acre site at Hareshill Distribution Park will accommodate another 160,000 sq ft unit which will be built and fitted out in three phases. Trafford-based Russells Construction has been appointed to carry out the works, which will see the first 100,000 sq ft phase built this year.
The decision has been prompted by new contract wins. Construction is set to begin in June in order to provide storage facilities for new customers coming on line later in the year.
The Hareshill site - described as a chilled food super hub - is next to
the Yearsley Group headquarters. The project will create upto 150 new jobs and securing employment for the existing 300 members of staff at Heywood. Harry Yearsley, managing director
of Yearsley Group, said: “The Heywood cold store is currently near to full capacity so the expansion of our operation is in direct response to the demands of new and existing customers for whom this North West location is ideal. It will become the first of two national ‘super hubs’ for Yearsley Group, enabling us to consolidate more stock in single, strategically located stores, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing carbon output.
“The cold storage and distribution market has developed over recent years and customers at
www.shdlogistics.com
both ends of the supply chain are demanding faster, more efficient, environmentally conscious services from their logistics partners. The extension of Heywood will ultimately provide us with a frozen storage capacity of more than 80,000 pallets in one North West location, helping us to better meet the storage needs of manufacturing customers and the delivery requirements of retail and food service customers across the country.” Earlier this spring Yearsley Group announced it would expand into dry- goods storage. The move followed a decision by Young’s Seafood to sign up for extra dry-goods storage at Yearsley Group’s revamped 65,000 sq ft Grimsby cold store. n
www.yearsley.co.uk Storage Handling Distribution June 2012 53
of the former George clothing depot. The combined effect of big plans, big hopes and a rather wobbly economy has been to leave East Midlands prop- erty folk with a strong sense of “not quite yet”. Rents will rise, they say, but not until the end of the year. Occupiers will begin to sign pre-let and design-and- build deals, but not until the autumn. Tim Richardson, associate director with
surveyors Innes England in Derby, sums up the mood: “The Marks & Spencers letting last year showed there was decent demand, and we’re still seeing interest along the M1 cor- ridor, especially for expansion and consolida- tions. But we are not quite at the point where we’re seeing pre-lets signed and design-
and-build contracts agreed, although I think that will change in the course of the year. “The same is true of rents – supply just isn’t
short enough to begin driving rents up. May- be by the autumn things will have changed.” In the end, the biggest news story may
turn out – as Richardson hints – to be that rents didn’t rise. This time last year survey- ors and property experts were confidently predicting that East Midlands rents would be heading up by now. Today those ex- pectations have been postponed – again – amidst talk of slightly lower incentives and slightly shorter rent-free periods. It’s still a tenants’ market in the East Midlands warehouse scene – but for how much longer? n
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