New office development at Grove Business Park secures prestige occupiers

By Nicky Godding

24 September 2018

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NFU Mutual, Penman Consulting and Forensic Access have completed leases to take offices in the new 10,500 sq ft Aspect House development at Grove Business Park, Wantage.

NFU Mutual have chosen Grove Business Park for their new regional offices, Penman Consulting are relocating from Faringdon and Forensic Access having acquired another operating company are expanding from elsewhere on the Park.

Aspect House was the latest speculative development initiative at Grove Business Park to help attract a growing number of thriving local and national businesses. The new Grade A air-conditioned offices offer top quality space comparable to the larger business parks around Oxfordshire at competitive rents and without the commuting challenges.

‘This was a bold move for us which has paid off,’ comments Richard Lyall, project director at GroveBusiness Park Limited. ‘We fully believe that Wantage needs this quality of office space to attract such businesses, and the fact that we had this building fully committed before construction was complete wastestament to this.’

Penman Consulting, one of the tenants moving into Aspect House, commented ‘The new offices provide us with an opportunity to build a state of the art facility to bring our growing UK science, regulatory, and IT development teams together under one roof, gaining the benefits of the synergy it provides. The high class IT infrastructure also allows us to build a hub for our operations in Brussels, Europe, India and the US, to bring the company together.’

Aspect House is part of an ongoing development programme at Grove Business Park, set to deliver 220,000 sq ft of new buildings doubling the floor area on this 32 acre Park. The next development to be constructed starts on site on 24th September and comprises ten mid-tech and industrial units to lease. These properties in the new “GBP1” development will be ready for occupation in summer 2019. Over 30% have already been contracted for occupation before construction has begun.

Additional industrial and office developments are in the pipeline to fulfil this pent-up occupier demand. This interest is both from businesses in the Wantage area wishing to upgrade their buildings, but also new businesses seeing the opportunity for recruitment in Wantage associated with the extensive new housing development within Grove and Wantage.

‘We plan to build at least 80,000 sq ft of new offices and industrial units during 2018 and 2019, which isreally unprecedented for Wantage’ adds Richard Lyall. ‘Added to this we have ongoing pre-let discussions with companies considering large design and build property solutions which would be veryexciting for the area.’

For further information visit: www.grovebusinesspark.com or contact letting agents David Williams or Rob Beatson at Bidwells on 01865 790116.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.