Industrial Property in Demand in the East Midlands – Interview with Nigel Carnall of WA Barnes
This month we looked at the proportion of property listings on NovaLoca in the East Midlands within each of the different sectors. We then compared this to the proportion of email enquiries in the last year for the same sectors. These figures suggest that industrial property is experiencing the highest level of demand in the East Midlands, compared with the other commercial property types.
Industrial property was positive nationwide in 2017, with a volume of £58.8bn, which was up 25% on 2016. The Q4 2017 RICS UK Commercial Property Market Survey also found industrial property to be the best performer in the East Midlands Commercial market, overtaking office property. Nigel Carnall of WA Barnes commented that “small industrial properties in the Mansfield area have let quickly, such as the Old Mill Lane development, so the area would benefit from more developments like this one”.
Our findings also suggest that there is a lack of demand of office property, compared to supply. Nigel Carnall has found that offices above retail property in particular are not doing well. He believes that WA Barnes would benefit from more stock, particularly “decent office space with car parking”. So the lack of demand for office space may suggest that there is too much supply of the wrong types of offices.
Nigel Carnall also commented that secondary shops have not been performing well. Occupier demand for retail property dropped significantly in 2017, according to the RICS Q4 Survey. The retail sector in the region also saw an increase in the availability of leasable space, and rents have dropped as a result. These figures contradict our findings, which suggest that retail property in the East Midlands has a higher demand than supply.
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