Voice of the Region: Suffolk – A port in a storm

Suffolk is showing its resilience to the gathering economic storm clouds thanks in large part to the influence of Britain’s busiest container port, Felixstowe, which is boosting activity levels across the logistics and warehousing sector, according to Penn Commercial founder and managing director Vanessa Penn.

Penn Commercial, located in Ipswich, transacted the most space in Suffolk in 2022 and currently sits in second place in the 2023 On Demand Rankings for Suffolk, with 44,205 sq ft transacted across 14 deals.

According to Penn, logistics and non-food retail warehousing are performing strongly this year, although activity levels in high street retail and offices has slowed, while most speculative development has been put on hold until costs come down. She believes the key thing for agents in the current climate is to keep the short to medium term churn of deals going and not get bogged down in longer term projects where planning can be time consuming.