Thank goodness for retailers. Their activity in the sector this year has made for some good news. In Scotland, the Co-op brought smiles to the market when, in the country’s biggest prelet deal in recent years, it took a 503,000 sq ft warehouse just outside Glasgow. Another big deal, in Bradford, saw Marks & Spencer take a 1.1m sq ft letting. And the major retailers continue to put out requirements for premises.
Positive news is welcome in a market that has been no better than patchy over the past year. Of course, patchy is a good word compared with “dismal”, which best described the market in 2009, when off the back of 2008 it was facing dark days.
The story is a much happier one in 2010. Research by Jones Lang LaSalle, published in August, shows that take-up volumes increased in many UK regions during the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2009. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the industrial heartland of the West Midlands has made the strongest recovery.
Europe is also bouncing back. Speculative development, frozen in most countries since the downturn, is expected to return by 2012 at the latest. Some markets, of course, are still struggling. Life for Northern Ireland’s small industrial sector has become increasingly difficult over the past few years, and there are no signs yet that it is going to improve any time soon.
The remainder of the UK market is optimistic. So, with the worst of the recession years behind us, let’s raise a glass to hopes for a lasting recovery in 2011.
Noella Pio Kivlehan
Editor
Distribution Parks Directory 2011
