Supply of business park space dwindles, says GVA
TAKE-up of space on the region’s business parks increased to 1.6m sq ft in the first six months of 2011 – an 8% increase on the previous period but almost 24% below the five-year average, according to GVA.
The North West was one of three regions which witnessed a decline in the amount of space available after experiencing three years without any speculative development. This has led vacancy rates in business parks across the region to fall to 11.3% – the lowest of any UK region.
Despite this, rent values remain stagnant in the region at around £19 per sq ft in Chester and £18 per sq ft in south Manchester, although rental values saw a slight increase in Warrington/Birchwood to £18 per sq ft.
The only new building completed during the period was the 240,00 sq ft of space constructed at Central Park in Manchester under a pre-let to Greater Manchester Police, and the only major current construction involves another pre-let of 120,000 sq ft at Birchwood Corporate in Warrington to the Home Office.
As a result, just 698,000 sq ft (or 11.3% of the total) remains available in the North West – down from 21.7% in 2007.
Ian Steele, a director at GVA’s Manchester office, said: “Despite the continued economic uncertainty there have been pockets of transactional activity on some of the North West’s business parks.
“This letting activity has predominately been centred around those business parks close to Manchester Airport such as Concord Business Park (Shell UK & Thyssen Krupp) and Atlas Business Park (Civil Aviation Authority), which has seen supply significantly reduced as a consequence.
“Demand for South Manchester business park space still remains healthy, especially around the airport but there are still no signs of any speculative development and there are very few speculative refurbishment schemes being committed to, which will result in occupiers having limited choices should they be considering relocation in the next couple of years.”
