Supply

Record levels of take-up in 2018 led to a decline in supply within the region but with an increase in speculative development completions supply now stands at 4.7m sq ft across 23 separate units a 22% rise on 2018. Consequently, the amount of Grade A speculatively developed space on the market has increased 67% since 2018-year end. The majority of the available space sits within the 100,000-200,000 sq ft size band accounting for 54% of all available space on the market.

Currently, there are four units on the market above 300,000 sq ft of which all are second hand, in fact 78% of the total available space is second hand. The largest unit on the market is Premier North Industrial Estate which comprises 546,970 sq ft.

Take-up

Following the highest recorded levels of take-up in 2018 the market has performed equally as well in H1 2019 reaching 4.09m sq ft representing a 55% rise above the long-term H1 average. Adhering to past trends in the region, build-to-suit space accounted for the majority of transactions at 47% of total space leased. Interestingly, by deal count 53% of deals involved second hand units compared to just 35% being build-to-suit units highlighting the larger average deal size of build-to-suit transactions.

The average deal size in the region stood at 240,682 at H1 2019 compared to 372,005 sq ft last year demonstrating occupier preference for smaller unit sizes. The region saw the largest deal nationwide in H1 2019 which was Amazon acquiring 730,715 sq ft at iPort in Doncaster.

Development pipeline

There are currently just three units under construction totalling 647,961 sq ft. The largest unit is Gateway 4 in Doncaster where Trebor Developments are speculatively developing 408,961 sq ft, set to achieve practical completion in Q1 2020.

_{Read the articles within Big Shed Briefing below.}