Miranda Barker Chief executive
@elancschamber
chamberelancs.co.uk
BANKERS AND MINISTERS MUST HEED BUSINESS VOICE
Frontier Park
The proposals that will be put forward to planners will divide the site into a series of smaller development plots, setting out the intended use and scale of development for each. Detailed proposals for the plots will follow through a series of separate applications for ‘reserved matters’.
Karen Hirst
There is no doubt Monte’s Frontier Park development, one of the largest speculative industrial projects in the North West, sitting just off the Whitebirk Roundabout of the M65, has been a major success story.
Logistics firm Fagan and Whalley, which has an operation at Burnley Bridge, is just one of the business working out of Frontier Park after acquiring a 208,000 sq ft warehouse there.
Three and a half years after work began, the development it is fully let. Caroline James, managing director at Trevor Dawson says: “That is phenomenal for a scheme of this size. I can’t think of anything in the North West built out that quickly and let. It was a new venture for them and shows real confidence in the area.”
Those behind the new logistics and distribution led Lancashire Central scheme also see it as a sign of that growing confidence. The masterplan has been drawn up after an earlier retail-led plan for the site, anchored by what would have been the North West’s largest Ikea store, fell through.
Karen Hirst, managing director of Maple Grove, believes the new and updated vision for the key strategic employment site at Cuerden, offers major possibilities.
Looking at what the site can offer, she points to Lancashire Central’s ideal positioning close to the North West’s motorway network as a major selling point. The mixed-use elements of the plan – as well as logistics, other commercial and housing development is proposed – also makes it more “sustainable”, she says.
The logistics market continues to perform well
from an occupier perspective
She adds: “In terms of where the industrial and logistics market has gone, it is such a strong market. This plan will bring jobs.
“We have not even started marketing it yet, but we are already getting enquiries from potential occupiers and funders on a regular basis. They are saying it is a strong market and I believe that will continue.”
James Scott, Maple Grove development director, says the new vision for the site is “primarily employment led”. If the go-ahead is given, he says the first stage will be to carry out infrastructure work. If the plans are approved that work could begin later this year.
Caroline James adds: “There is a marked difference to where we were five years ago.
Continued on page 44
LANCASHIREBUSINESSVIEW.CO.UK
Delicate moments lie ahead for our economy, and what is needed now is both a Treasury and a Bank of England that are capable of both listening to what business is saying and acting with nuance – not the usual blunt instrument.
At our August Chamber Diamond Ambassadors session for our patron Lancashire businesses, meeting with the Bank of England’s NW agent, we heard the vast majority of our businesses are still feeling confident in growth to come, despite all the pressures in play, and we heard of the beginning of a welcome softening in raw material prices.
Are these signs that interest rate rises have started to do their job? And that now might be best to watch and wait and not stifle further economic growth with too hasty a repeat of interest rate hikes?
We all know the sequence of events - covid, raw material scarcity and price rises, transport difficulties and costs escalation, oil prices ballooning, international conflict, energy prices soaring, galloping inflation, leading to wage rises, price rises and on and on.
But if raw material prices are starting to turn down, what is needed now is pressure where it really matters - cap businesses’ energy prices, cap energy taxes, support our workers with their energy costs, but do not depress trade further if you don’t have to.
Be careful bankers and new ministers that you don’t punish the consequence of inflation, rather than the cause.
Need business support?
info@chamberelancs.co.uk 01254 356400
chamberelancs.co.uk
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LOGISTICS
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