Common reference points for business property across the board of all sectors are the “B” word Brexit, plus depth of changes brought about by The Pandemic, the effects of which went from noticeable to seismic, with winners and losers.

In the winning category, logistics has blossomed – buying on line / ecommerce acceleration, technology enabled distance working from home / home deliveries. Also the rapid emergence of Data Centres.

So in this new mix, warehouses are on the podium. Not only for storage……

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the current business and technological revolution, has evolved from the recent Digital Revolution, with new focus on the seamless communication between machines, systems, and people, to optimise operations in real-time. Machines of today are freeing up time to reorganise human day to day activities with rapid lifestyle change adoption / adaptation. So in practical terms this is leading to noticeable growth in well-being destination gyms, fitness studios, specialist and aspirational centres, gymnastics, for example amongst many other sports. Warehouses are ideal for these types of uses – note for example the exponential growth of Padel.

At micro level the local warehouse / logistics market is a drop in the ocean to the vastness of this era, although to Christopher Thomas regionally it is of high importance, many of our landlord clients are in this sector, many of our tenant / occupier clients also.

From sub £10.00 per sq.ft rents pre COVID, levels have doubled, so as a generalisation a 100% uplift in 6 years compared to circa 25% inflation. This was always a catch up  market – dealing with warehouses in the 1980’s around Greater London / Thames Valley / Surrey were around £6.00 per sq.ft. hovering sub £10.00 per sq.ft for decades. As a longstanding professional, the decline in manufacturing is noticeable too. Christopher Thomas  sold a household name corporate client’s occupational industrial property portfolio ranging downwards from 180,000 sq.ft. buildings in and around London and Southern Ireland several years ago, as they retrenched to their European homeland, also adding lower cost Far East manufacturing to their business strategy.

So on an upbeat note the present trend is one of targeting users for specific types of warehouse properties and locations whilst on the other hand filtering through enquiries.

Unit E1 Fairacres Windsor recently let to ASL Global Logistics

Last month we let a yard and office in Old Windsor, have agreed a pre-let of refurbished warehouse premises in Maidenhead, have agreed terms for two warehouse premises in Windsor, both of which are moving into the leisure / wellness use categories. Thames Valley / Surrey Rents are currently in the mid £teens per sq.ft. Closer to Heathrow, generally above £20 per sq.ft. with some displacement in favour of other competing industrial / warehouse aligned uses ………… the largest geographical grouping of data centres, is in Slough with Slough Estates (SEGRO) widely considered Europe’s largest continuous data centre estate, housing over 40 individual facilities operated by major providers like Equinix and VIRTUS.

Christopher Thomas have extensive knowledge and history of industrial warehouse logistics property in the region. We are always delighted to help existing clients and new with our expertise, both in our exceptional agency and professional roles.

Featured Image: Boyn Industrial Estate Maidenhead – several units, 80.000 sq.ft in total, let and pre-let by Christopher Thomas from 2024.