Property markets in Telford and the county’s other market towns are once more on the up. Following stagnation during the 1990s, a number of major developments in the residential, office and industrial sectors are either planned or under way.
And English Partnerships, which controls some 2,500 acres in and around Telford, says land values are finally showing upward movement. Senior development manager Chris Baker reports increases of between 10-15% over the past year. “They have been static for quite some time, but an acre of employment land is now going for between £160,000 and £170,000.”
The most important move, which could herald the area’s rebirth as a major logistics location, is the go-ahead for a rail-linked transport interchange, on former military land at nearby Donnington.
The 2.6-mile stretch of track between there and the national network, at Wellington, was closed15 years ago, and for some local property professionals, it seems nearly as long since its reinstatement was proposed. However, the MOD, EP and Telford & Wrekin council are finally ready to progress with reinstatement of the track.
The council’s project manager, Graham Fairhurst, says the next stage will be finding a partner to build a rail-linked, £30m, 400,000-plus sq ft shed. “We expect the terminal, which is predicted to move 500,000 tonnes pa, will open in 2007, with the new shed following six months later,” he says. “We are close to selecting a terminal operator, and hope to make an announcement next month.”
Both Baker and Fairhurst hope the terminal will attract both manufacturers and logistics operators.
Major manufacturers, including Denso, Epson, Makita, Maxell and Ricoh, already have significant plants in the Telford area. These and other companies, especially in the automotive components and polymers sectors, use the M54 link to the M6 for distribution.
Even before the go-ahead, German plastics extrusion specialist Craemer UK has taken a 90,000 sq ft factory at Telford’s Hortonwood One business park, which is due to open in October.
EP is now looking for a developer to build 55,000 sq ft of speculative workshop space at Telford’s Halesfield 17 park, and says serious inquiries are being received for a9-acre plot at the same location.
The area’s office market is also buoyant. Planning consent has been granted at Telford’s Hadley Park East for almost 40,000 sq ft of space on a 6.5-acre site. Three of the seven plots have been sold, two are with the lawyers and terms have been agreed on the others, says Baker.
The “own door” space has proved so popular that EP will submit plans this autumn for a second speculative office scheme, offering around 70,000 sq ft, on an adjacent 5-acre site.
Telford-based senior surveyor Anthony Wiggins of Bulleys says it is at least 10 years since there was such significant activity. “We’re already seeing the impact on rents,” he says, pointing out that office rents for new space at Bovale’s Euston Park scheme, beside Telford’s railway station, are the highest, at around £14.50 per sq ft. Refurbished stock is going for between £9 and £12 per sq ft. Industrial space around the 10,000 sq ft size has started to creep over £5 per sq ft, while freehold is still rare.
Wiggins sees the same trend along the M54 corridor, which is one of the key strategic economic locations identified by regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands.
At the Wolverhampton end, he says new office space is going for between £13 and £16 per sq ft. Around Telford, rents are £9.50-£14 per sq ft, and towards Shrewsbury, £9.50-13.50 per sq ft.”
The rising market around Telford has even led the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, which owns much of Coalbrookdale and its historic surroundings, to refurbish redundant buildings alongside the River Severn.
Wiggins says a 6,000 sq ft building is about to be let to a technology business for around £10 per sq ft.
There is also significant activity in the county’s market towns, thanks largely to a series of joint ventures between local authorities and AWM.
James Evans, who heads the commercial department at Shrewsbury-based Samuel Wood & Co says there are particularly active markets in Ludlow in the south, Oswestry and Whitchurch in the north and Shrewsbury,
“Ludlow has a 6-acre site on the A49, where a retail park was rejected, but a £10m mixed-use scheme given the go-ahead,” he says. “In the town centre, the council is looking for developers to take on its own 6-acre site.”
Evans says similar opportunities have also recently come to the market in Shrewsbury. “There are three sites offering 11 acres, which I suspect will be developed for service industry uses,” he says.
As in the Telford area, the rising market is seeing employment land values rise to record heights. AWM’s property team leader for Shropshire, Nigel Hudson, says prices are between £120,000 and £140,000 per acre in Oswestry, Whitchurch and Ludlow, with prime sites in Shrewsbury going for around £200,000.
The agency and South Shropshire council are meeting the demand for office space outside the main urban areas with a new eco-office park on a 6-acre site on the A49 at Ludlow.
Stoford Developments is under way with the first 18,000 sq ft phase, and advanced negotiations are also being held with a potential end-user for the next phase.
The demand for space has surprised even the county council. “Originally, we saw this as a 10-15 year supply of employment land for Ludlow and south Shropshire, but based on the interest shown to date, the whole site will be developed long before then,” admits chief executive Graham Biggs.
In Whitchurch, AWM and the county council have established a jv to develop an 8-acre scheme, Civic Park, which will eventually offer around 120,000 sq ft of commercial and office space. A similar jv development approach is now being considered for Oswestry.
AWM and the county council hope to establish a food park for production and processing companies. The 24-acre site will eventually offer between 250,000-280,000 sq ft of space, and Hudson hopes work on the first 25,000 sq ft phase will start before the year-end.
With land values and rents at record levels across the county, it looks as if Shropshire’s long-awaited economic renaissance has finally arrived.
|
|
|
English Partnerships and its development partners are proceeding with major residential-led, mixed-use schemes in the Telford area – notably, on strategic sites at Lawley, Lightmoor and East Ketley. A detailed application for 180 homes as the first phase of the £500m Lawley Urban Village (pic below) was submitted this month. A consortium comprising Barratt, Persimmon Homes and George Wimpey won the contract, against competition from Cofton, Lovell, Redrow, Taylor Woodrow and Wilson Bowden. The 173-acre Lawley site, on former colliery land, will ultimately offer 3,300 homes, and is one of the UK’s largest urban regeneration schemes. English Partnership’s senior regeneration manager Sarah Williams says phased development work is predicted to last for 18 years. |
