Member Article

Confidence returns to the business park market in Yorkshire - GVA

Take-up of business parks across the UK has witnessed a continued rise as confidence returns to the market, research by GVA has found. The Yorkshire and Humber region has benefited hugely from this rise, where take-up has been 50% above the national average.

The research by GVA, one of the UK’s leading property consultants, has found that take-up of space across the UK totalled 2.3m sq ft – 16% above the five-year average of 2m sq ft, in the six month period.

Although several stand-out cities such as Aberdeen have contributed to the increase, the South East and East of England were 28% down on deals.

Matthew Tootell, director of Offices at GVA in Leeds, said: “The market is in a really positive place at the moment, and its set to increase over the next quarter. Demand by occupiers for high-quality office space is on the up, and this is driving the positive trend being seen at business parks. There is also clear evidence that as demand increases, supply has started to run low, which has led to a boost in construction.”

Business park construction activity nationwide has risen by 13% since 2013, which is underpinned almost exclusively by non-speculative development. Since 2008 speculative development has dropped by 68%, highlighting the growing demand from occupiers, alongside continued caution from developers.

Tootell added: “In terms of the future of the market, we’re confident that the high level of demand for UK property will continue with a strong appetite for regional markets.”

Carl Potter, National Head of Offices at GVA, commented on the report’s findings: “This is an amazing continuum of the trend we saw beginning to gather pace some 18 months ago, which was followed by investor confidence kicking back in some nine months ago and which is now reaching a level where new builds are having to be delivered to meet occupiers’ needs.

“We remain a long way at this stage from seeing the next wave of speculative development taking shape, but availability levels in some of the regional out-of-town markets ( similar to the movements in the main city-centre office markets) are now seeing clear evidence of qualitative shortages.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Robert Beaumont .