Industrial rents rise as South West market has best year since 2017, says JLL

Published by

Peter Davison

New research from JLL into the South West’s mid box and multi-let industrial market – units of between 5,000 and 100,000 sq ft – has revealed that rents are rising as strong demand meets limited supply.

The report, The multi-let and mid box industrial market Spring 2022, found that average prime headline rents rose by nine per cent in the year to March 2022.

In Bristol, the region’s main industrial market, annual take-up levels reached their highest peak since 2017.

During 2021, 818,000 sq ft of new multi-let or mid box space was let in the South West, of which 478,000 sq ft was in the 4,999 – 49,999 sq ft bracket and 340,000 sq ft in the 50,000 to 99,999 sq ft category.

At the end of March this year, 726,000 sq ft of new floorspace was available with 830,000 sq ft of speculative space under construction. New schemes in the pipeline include three units at St Modwen Park, Avonmouth and phase two of More+ in Bristol.

Henry De Teissier, associate at JLL in Bristol, said: “The South West’s major industrial markets along motorway corridors are all seeing good levels of demand and limited supply with upward pressure on rents.

“Bristol saw demand coming from a wide range of sectors including e-commerce, last mile logistics, grocery delivery, building trade suppliers engineering and even micro-breweries.

“And in Swindon, the town has benefitted from some recent high quality new speculative development and enjoyed a period of strong rental growth however supply remains generally constrained with a limited pipeline stock coming through.

"Demand remains encouraging amongst all size ranges, particularly sub 10,000 sq ft and above 50,000 sq ft."

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.