British Land has started work on plans for a multi-storey urban logistics development just off London’s Old Kent Road.
The FTSE 100 REIT bought the site at 6-12 Verney Road, SE16, for £31m last February, and now plans to develop a building of up to four storeys on the 1.8-acre site. Previous owner CB Acquisition LDN received consent for a mixed-use scheme including homes.
Documents filed with Southwark Council said British Land’s development proposals are “evolving”, but that the company “intends to provide an innovative logistics space, working in accordance with the London Plan and maximising the site’s potential and coverage, through developing a product that stacks the logistics space over a series of floors, providing a building with the freedom to be subdivided, multi-tenanted, and one that is future-proofed – allowing a flexible footprint that’s adaptable to future trends and business requirements”.
As well as the Verney Road scheme, British Land’s efforts to build an urban logistics portfolio in London include spending £22m on a site on Mandela Way, also in Southwark.
The company is also underway with planning for a 127,000 sq ft logistics scheme, known as The Box, at 5 Kingdom Street at its Paddington campus; working on 668,000 sq ft of logistics space at Hannah Close in Wembley and 408,000 sq ft at Heritage House in Enfield; and is submitting plans for a 637,400 sq ft hub east of London in Thurrock.
British Land’s urban logistics assets accounted for £323m of the company’s £3.4bn portfolio as of September 2022, with a gross development value of £1.5bn.
In its half-year results published last November, the firm said: “Our appetite in this sector is unchanged given the strong occupational fundamentals and the potential for a softer investment market to allow us to source opportunities at more attractive pricing.”
Chief executive Simon Carter said at the time of the results: “There will be opportunities to buy some sites where we can really put some good density on them. There’s only a limited number of sites that you can really do good multi-storey on, but we will look in that Zone 1 space, which will be vertical warehouses with elevators or lifts for effectively moving goods around, and then multi-storey with ramps in the Greater London area.”
The company declined to comment on its Verney Road plans.
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