Industrial and warehouse provider AIPUT wants to engage with local communities in west London and the Thames Valley to help build the regions’ recoveries next year.

Nick Smith, fund manager for AIPUT, part of Aberdeen Standard Investments, was speaking at our Spotlight on Heathrow webinar on November 26. AIPUT has 16 locations at Heathrow in a portfolio of £700 million.

Mr Smith said: “As a responsible long-term investor, we want to be working much more closely with the local communities so that we can work hand in hand with local people, real people, real businesses, to build a much stronger recovery period from 2021 onwards.”

He said AIPUT wants to stimulate economic activity by finding new opportunities in the region through collaborating.

He went on: “Over the course of this year itself, we’ve been working with a number of businesses which have been looking to increase their foothold in and around Heathrow.

“Remarkably, we don’t hold any void units – we have no space available at Heathrow. We have some development opportunity coming through in the next three to five years which offer phenomenal opportunities to support the growth and vibrancy of the Heathrow and the Thames Valley areas.

“But today we don’t have anything and so someone like Alan Sugar might be very surprised that we would run out of stock in that way. But I think that that is a demonstration of how the headlines have got some areas of the economic vibrancy of Heathrow wrong, in my opinion.

“There has been some really really tough areas and tough decisions have been made this year. But there are plenty of businesses which are also willing to invest in the area and have taken space from us and also taken space in and around our various other business partners around Heathrow too.”

Mr Smith said Heathrow remains an international hub airport of choice. While passenger numbers have been devastated by restrictions, cargo has held up, particularly through demand for PPE, medical supplies and food.

See also: ‘WRLtH will benefit 14 million people’ and Hounslow could lose 40,000 jobs to Covid crisis

 

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