Amazon leased seven million square feet of warehouse space in the UK in 2016, 19 per cent of the region’s total letting for the year until mid December. Real estate consultancy Gerald Eve’s Prime Logistics report analyses the UK’s 50,000+ sq ft warehouse market. Amazon’s dominance was particularly pronounced, it found, during Q3 2016, when Amazon took 3.4 million sq ft of new space, a quarter of the 13.8 million sq ft of total lettings.
“For one company to be responsible for a fifth of all lettings is remarkable – all the more so given Q3 saw the highest-ever quarterly take-up, putting 2016 on course to be the strongest year for the industrial occupier market we have recorded,” said Richard Ludlow, partner at Gerald Eve. “Despite the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote in June, occupier demand for warehouse space remains strong, and it is online retailers such as Amazon that are underpinning this interest. The strength of this demand highlights just how robust the sector’s future prospects are.”
