Around 9.7m sq ft was
taken up in the six months to June this year, compared to 9.6m sq ft in 2019.
The number was 6% lower than the second half of 2019 (10.3m sq ft). Retailers
accounted for 63% of the take-up in the first half of this year, with e-commerce
taking up 27%.
According
to JLL’s ‘H1 2020 UK Big Box Industrial & Logistics Market Research’, there
was 25.4m sq ft of grade A space available across the UK at the end of June, 7%
lower than the figure for the end of last year. At the end of June there was
4.9m sq ft of big box logistics floorspace speculatively under construction
nationally.
Tessa
English, director, industrial and logistics research at JLL, commented: “H1
2020 has been an unprecedented six months, and with a huge amount of economic
uncertainty, the logistics market has demonstrated the importance of supply
chains and the continuing demand for logistics floorspace to keep the nation
moving. Within 9.7 million sq ft of long-term deals and 2.4 million sq ft of
short term deals recorded in H1 2020, occupational demand was robust. The
overall vacancy rate also fell in the first six months of this year, which is
very promising given the tough economic period we are going to be facing, and
with a pipeline of deals expected to complete in the second half of this year,
we are looking forward with a much more positive sentiment for the market.”