Industrial property take up on the rise

THE take up of large industrial and logistics property in the Midlands appears to be in the rise.

In the first quarter of 2011, 2.17m sq ft of units over 100,000 sq ft was taken by occupiers across the region compared with 1.75m sq ft in Q4 of 2010.

The new figures were revealed by Richard Meering, senior director in the industrial team at real estate advisor CB Richard Ellis, at its annual Midlands Market Insight seminar, in Birmingham.

He said the apparent upturn in demand would have to be balanced against a lack of available space in the region with only two new sheds over 450,000 sq ft currently available across the whole of the Midlands.

He told delegates that no new speculative development had been started since Q2 of 2007 and there were very few large sites with infrastructure.

Mr Meering said: “On average, 3.13m sq foot has been taken up annually in the West Midlands since 2006, with 14 buildings in 2010.

“Logistics operators took 1.65m from the total 2010 take up of 2.74m sq ft of units over 100,000 sq ft. A lot of that was linked to the success of the manufacturing industry.

“In Q1 of this year, there was 5.24m sq ft of industrial space availability which suggests we have just over one year’s worth of available new supply left in the West Midlands.

“This is compares with less than a year’s supply in the East Midlands and about six months in the South East.

“These figures show the current imbalance between supply and demand for modern premises.”

Only Australian business park developer Goodman, whose UK operations are based in Solihull and Reading, had spent money speculatively in the Midlands, Mr Meering added.

[VIDEO: 330]