Yorkshire one of two UK regions to record a year-on-year increase in industrial property

Yorkshire and The Humber was just one of only two UK regions to record a year-on-year increase in occupier demand of industrial space in 2015, according to research from JLL.

Industrial take-up across Yorkshire and The Humber totalled around 8.8 million sq ft in 2015 a 10% up on 2014. Of this, take-up involving industrial and warehouse units from 1,000 sq ft to 99,999 sq ft in size reached 5.9 million sq ft, a 12% increase on the previous year.

Occupier activity involving units of 100,000 sq ft and over totalled 2.9 million sq ft, 7% up on 2014. The largest increase recorded in take-up involving units from 1,000 sq ft to 99,999 sq ft was in units in the 50,000 to 99,999 sq ft size bracket, where floorspace transacted in 2015 doubled from 2014.

Some of the major deals in Yorkshire that contributed to this figure included the 635,000 sq ft letting to TK Maxx at Cross Point, Wakefield, the 523,000 sq ft deal to Poundworld Retail at Link 62 Normanton and the acquisition of 108,000 sq ft at Wakefield 41 by Menzies Distribution.

At the end of 2015, there was around 23.6 million sq ft of industrial floorspace available across the Yorkshire and Humberside market, 18% down on the end of December 2014.

Availability in Yorkshire and The Humber accounted for 11.9% of the GB total. At end of the first quarter of 2016, there were just two schemes speculatively under construction in Yorkshire and Humberside totalling 350,299 sq ft.

Rich Harris, head of industrial and logistics at JLL in Leeds, said: “Supply of modern and new buildings is becoming critically short across the Yorkshire and Humberside. This is fuelling rental growth and a hardening of terms. Speculative development remains limited, largely focussed on the main motorway corridors and commercial centres. We anticipate that levels of speculative development will remain relatively modest for the foreseeable future.

“We are experiencing some build to suit activity, although this is location specific. We expect more widespread build to suit projects over the next 12-24 months as supply diminishes further.

“We predict that overall UK industrial take-up this year will be broadly comparable to that achieved in 2015. However there is a downside risk that the EU referendum will act as a drag on corporate decision-making resulting in a lower level of activity.”

Prime headline rents increased in all the locations monitored by JLL across Yorkshire and The Humber over the 12-month period to December 2015, with Leeds recording the strongest growth at 13%.