Firms’ appetite for new industrial units has stayed ‘keen’ in the region during the lockdown with a steady take-up of warehouse units by both manufacturers and retailers involved in internet shopping. The Peterborough office of agent Barker Storey Matthews has seen a constant take-up of smaller warehouse units in the past two months particularly at two newly-built speculative developments, Heron Court in Yaxley and at Merlin Court in Market Deeping, due for completion in June. Demand has also come from ‘green’ businesses such as electrical contractors and component suppliers for electronic vehicles. Since March, the agent says no new warehouses have come to the market so the availability of stock is coming under increasing pressure. Overall industrial property vacancy levels around Peterborough have fallen from over 1.5 million sq ft in 2014 to 470,000 sq ft by March, just 1.7 per cent of the total stock. Limited options are available at Gateway Park, the 250 acre development by Roxhill next to the A1(M), where volume distributors such as Lidl have announced deals. Richard Jones of the agent’s Peterborough office said: “Along with other professional property peers, the industrial sector remains the main growth area of the commercial market - and the wider economy here. We firmly believe it will lead the way as we come through the shadows cast by the coronavirus.”
Photo: Heron Court, Eagle Business Park, Yaxley
