PROPERTY
INDUSTRIAL
Growth – the industrial property sector enjoyed its strongest ever quarter at the end of 2019 , with more than 14.3m square feet and an annual take up of 50.4m square feet across the UK .
How some sectors continue to flourish for commercial property market
BOOM
J
Sanderson Weatherall associate partner Chris Dent ( pictured below ) surveys an ever-changing landscape for the commercial property sector …
ust over a year ago , pre the Covid-19 pandemic , we wrote a piece of editorial that focused on the strength in the commercial property market in the North-East and within Teesside in particular .
Just a couple of weeks after publishing , we were amid one of the most economically uncertain times in living memory , and for a short period the commercial property market went into standstill .
Despite this inevitable period of uncertainty , it has been great to see the Teesside property market displaying its resilience – and no one sector has displayed this more than the industrial market .
The industrial and logistics market has long been viewed by investors as less favourable in comparison to other core commercial property market sectors such as office and retail .
However , with changing demographics and the continued growth of ecommerce , the UK industrial logistics sector has experienced strong levels of growth consistently over the past five years . Our agency team has witnessed this growth first-hand at both an occupier and an investment level , with demand largely outstripping supply across all major UK regions .
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic the industrial and logistics market has continued to flourish . As well as the aforementioned demographic and supply / demand factors , there has been the addition of many office retail and leisure properties being closed .
It ’ s been widely reported the online sales have doubled in the space of nine months from March 2020 , with e-commerce and delivery companies accounting for nearly 40 per cent of annual take up .
This “ perfect storm ” of conditions culminated in the strongest Q4 ever recorded for the industrial sector , with more than 14.3m sq ft and an annual take up of 50.4m sq ft across the UK . The North-East has followed this national trend and the industrial property sector has outperformed other sectors in recent years , with a greater evidence of transactions on both the sales and letting front .
There ’ s no doubt that location remains a key factor in demand for industrial units , with the most popular industrial states benefiting from close proximity to good communication links .
The preferred location for such sites within the North-East continues to be alongside the A1 and A19 corridors . Over the past 12 months we ’ ve brought a raft of new instructions to market and , as mentioned previously , we ’ re experiencing unprecedented levels of demand , so the majority of these have been sold or let within months of coming to market .
We ’ ve also been involved in Station Place at Newton Aycliffe since the scheme ’ s inception , and with work starting on site in March , it ’ s set to provide over 50,000 sq ft of muchneeded new industrial space for the region .
Chris Dent Associate partner Sanderson Weatherall
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