Voice of the Region: West Midlands – Industrial resolution

Logistics is still king in the West Midlands - despite the shockwaves created by Amazon’s strategic reassessment this week - with rents and capital values continuing to blossom, according to Siddall Jones managing director Ed Siddall Jones.

The company leads the way in the 2022 Radius On Demand Rankings for the West Midlands, with 306,782 sq ft of space transacted across 51 deals. Chief among these has been a 71,000 sq ft letting at Hawthorns70 on the Park Rose Industrial Estate in Swethwick to logistics operator World Depot Inc.

Siddall Jones says logistics is still taking up a “ridiculous” amount of space and rents are continuing to rise, with the only limit being the availability of stock. However, he expects specialist manufacturing to become a bigger part of the industrial picture as international supply chains come under increasing pressure. He also expects the Commonwealth Games to create a legacy that will benefit the region’s wider CRE market.