Office space constrained in the East Midlands

The East Midlands is one of the most constrained regional markets for office space – with only 2.2 years’ worth of supply currently on the market, according to Radius Data Exchange figures on active demand over the past year combined with current standing availability. Only the neighbouring West Midlands region has a shallower amount of standing office supply relative to demand outside of London. Developers and landlords have responded to this accelerated demand by pushing through more than 3m sq ft in new permissions over the last 12 months, representing an annual increase of 55% in new space approved against the nationwide average of just a 3% jump year-on-year. A similar outperformance of the national average pipeline growth for new space has been seen in the industrial sector – with the East Midlands seeing 31% more square footage approved in the last year than the preceding one, against a UK-wide figure of 6%. This, alongside the fact that demand for industrial space in the East Midlands is directly in line with national average figures, is testament to the fact that developers retain confidence in the region’s continued importance to the logistics market over the long-term. A contrasting story in the retail sector, however, with three years’ worth of stock currently available against a national average of 2.8 years. Only the North West, Scotland and Yorkshire show a higher amount of currently available space relative to current demand. To send feedback, e-mail graham.shone@egi.co.uk or tweet @GShoneEG or @estatesgazette