Worcestershire showing a resilience to economic uncertainty – but we need to start building the commercial property the county needs, says GJS Dillon

The Business Magazine article image for: Worcestershire showing a resilience to economic uncertainty – but we need to start building the commercial property the county needs, says GJS Dillon

Property & Construction

By Peter Davison

20 February 2023

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Worcestershire is showing a resilience to economic uncertainty and businesses are benefiting from its location and the support that’s on offer, according to commercial property consultancy GJS Dillon.

"Quality accommodation that is in the right location is able to withstand the wider economic uncertainty that has become the norm. This is the case for all sectors and types of accommodation," said Andrew Lewis, GJS Dillon’s Commercial Agency Director, who authored GJS Dillon’s Worcestershire Commercial Property Market Report 2023, which has just been published.

While the take up of office space increased for the third year in 2022, industrial take up was down as demand far outstripped supply.

Take-up of office space in 2022 was up on the previous year with transactions totalling 167,353 sq ft compared with 161,853 sq ft during 2021. In contrast, industrial property transactions dropped by 38 per cent from 1,734,834 sq ft in 2021 to 1,095,182 sq ft in 2022.

John Dillon, GJS Dillon’s Managing Director, added: "We’ve seen really good take up this year for office and industrial property to let however it is really difficult to buy commercial property in our County.

"Income generated from our commercial property is often going out of the County. We need to start building what we as a county need rather than simply leaving it to chance and market forces’

Phoebe Dawson, Director of Business Engagement at the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership said: "We value our continued involvement with this report because it is such a well-regarded and informative publication.

"The details give us an insight into the individual sub-markets so if we are going to bid for Government development grants or have discussions with local Councils we are able to make informed decisions."

The figures in the report are based on figures and analysis from CoStar, which it uses to advise vendors, purchasers, developers, landlords and tenants. The report looks in detail at the county’s six sub-markets for both office and industrial property.

Pictured left to right: Mike Sutton, Director of Commercial Building Surveying at GJS Dillon, Phoebe Dawson, Director of Business Engagement at Worcestershire LEP, John Dillon, Managing Director at GJS Dillon and Andrew Lewis, Commercial Agency Director at GJS Dillon

By 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.