Member Article

Manchester office market is biggest outside London

Greater Manchester has become the largest office market outside London, according to the latest assessment of the property sector by DTZ.

Think tank, New Economy, published findings in its monthly Manchester Monitor that predicted office take-up in Manchester city centre will reach 850,000 sq ft this year, which has been attributed to activity in business and professional services in the region.

On a recent trip to Greater Manchester, the Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, said the region has an exciting future ahead as a result of its nurturing of growth sectors.

The commercial property market also saw a major planning application take shape for a £250m warehouse scheme at the Cutacre strategic site, which is spread across Bolton, Wigan and Salford.

This will provide up to 1m sq ft of space targeted at manufacturers and office users, and New Economy anticipated job creation of up to 5,000 posts when the Cutacre site is complete.

Dr Alexander Roy, head of economic research at New Economy, said: “That Manchester remains the largest commercial property market outside of London only serves to strengthen the city’s reputation and gives more substance to endorsements about the city by opinion leaders such as Sir Mervyn King.

“That the outgoing governor of the Bank of England chose to break the habit of a lifetime and talk about a place in the UK apart from London was praise indeed, and he was fulsome in hailing Greater Manchester’s past successes and future prospects, flagging our successful nurturing of growth sectors, which includes business and professional services.

“The uptake of commercial property looks like it will peak later this year when the Co-op markets a number of its former sites following its move to the Angel Square development - the market has also seen a £250m warehouse scheme revealed for the Cutacre strategic site, which spans Bolton, Wigan and Salford.

“Great news for those areas as once it is fully let Cutacre has the potential to create in excess of 5,000 net new jobs.”

New Economy’s monitor also showed a continuing fall in crime of 10.6% year-on-year, while average house prices fell by 3.5% for the 29th consecutive month.

Greater Manchester’s visitor economy was shown to be strong, with hotel occupancy on the up, while Manchester Airport posted year-on-year growth (6%) in passenger numbers and outpaced all other UK airports.

The airport further expects to welcome 20m passengers through its doors throughout 2013.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .