More businesses snap up space at employment park
Malton Enterprise Park is celebrating a raft of new deals – despite the challenges of Covid-19.
Harrison Developments, the owners and developers of the park next to the A64, revealed that 12 deals had been signed during the past three months.
Latest occupiers include Direct Imaging and Parnabys, while existing tenants Bella di Notte, Aquapoint and Dales The Chef’s Choice are expanding into new business units on the park.
Other recently signed up occupiers include Toolstation, Snug Campers, J.S Graphixx, Neu-Era, The Wooden House, Dogtooth and Timeless Precision Engineering.
In addition, a number of other units on the 180,000 sq ft site, ranging from 2,000 sq ft upwards, have been sold to private investors.
Work, subject to social distancing, has continued on the park during the year. Occupiers from a wide range of business sectors have taken a combined total of 40,000 sq ft.
Sean Harrison, managing director of Harrison Developments, said: “These new deals are a tremendous vindication of the substantial investment we have made in our park.
“More than 180 new and sustainable jobs have been created on site, which makes us very proud. The wide variety of successful businesses here is also an indication of the strength of the economy in Ryedale.
“We are especially pleased that successful Yorkshire businesses such Bella di Notte and Dales The Chef’s Choice are expanding into larger premises on our park, because they like the location and the ambience so much.
“But these new deals are only part of the story. We have a further 100,000 sq ft of quality employment land at the park, available on a design and build basis. We will build speculatively and can either sell or lease the new units.
“These units will be single or two-storey commercial buildings which will be designed with maximum flexibility to allow a range of uses, including light industrial, offices, general industrial and retail, trade and warehousing.”
Susan Johnson, owner of Bella di Notte, explained: “We moved here from Helmsley two years ago and haven’t looked back.
“It’s a lovely location to work, light and airy not hemmed in. It’s an easy place to attract staff from York, Scarborough and further afield.
“We are a mail order business and our sales have increased 32% during Covid. There were moments when we couldn’t cope with the high levels of demand with our safe working practices and customers had to wait.
“We even had to close our website at one point. Everyone was very keen on home delivery. We have been very lucky and our team has been very supportive.”
Richard Dale, owner of Dales The Chef’s Choice, said: “We bought our first unit here two years and are now purchasing another unit on this site, which is 5,000 sq ft, as we have outgrown our existing premises.
“Our business is wholesale food supply to the all aspects of the catering trade, including restaurants, cafes, hotels, theme parks, stately homes and care homes.
“We were hugely affected by COVID-19 and lost 80% our wholesale business overnight. So we flipped the business and created an online ordering service for home deliveries acting as a supermarket providing local produce you can’t get in your everyday shop.
“During Covid, The developers developed some land for us to put in a temporary container freezer to help us cope with demand and were extremely efficient.
“The units are finished to a high standard, compared to other sites with a modern look across the whole development.”
