Bracknell is returning to its original industrial purpose, delegates heard when around 100 business and property professionals gathered for the launch of the BID’s new business plan.
After an office market overview by Guy Parkes, partner at Vail Williams, an expert panel at the September 17 event at Maxis heard how industrial and logistics buildings are replacing its once dominant office market, taking the town back to its origins.
But Nick Hardy, director of Page Hardy Harris, said the declining office market had also created opportunities for businesses to buy existing space.
He told the meeting: “What I would say about Bracknell is that we are in an area that is fantastic at generating businesses.
“They pop up all the time in Bracknell, we’re an incubator. Some of those businesses will fail because that’s normally how it works in the sort of competitive world of business, but many of those businesses succeed and they grow and they may grow into behemoths.”
He said those which choose to stay in the town can take advantage of the availability of office stock.
He added: “The simple fact is you can go out and buy an office for far less than it costs to build it and you can go and get a beautifully fitted and furnished one, probably for the cost of the fitting and the furnishing. The office comes completely free. It’s a world of opportunity.”
Andy Jansons, managing director of Jansons Property, described his firm’s plan to redevelop one of the most well-known office sites in the town.
He said: “We have acquired the old Dell UK headquarters which is in the Western Bracknell area and is now behind the new Amazon data centre.
“There we’ve got 86,000 sq ft of offices, which were previously occupied by up to 1,000 people at one stage and it has 1,000 car parking spaces, on eight acres.
“But it’s just not viable to bring that back into modern standard to attract the right sort of occupiers so we’ve acquired that at land value – we’re coming full circle.
“We are looking at three new buildings – more industrial light industrial, logistics heavy industrial – so potentially three different types of businesses coming into the area, rather than the traditional office space.”
Nick Hardy said Bracknell is located where it is for its transport links which served its previous industrial heritage. He added: “It was put here for a reason so it is logical that it is moving back in that way.
“The fact that we became dominantly an office market for a period of time is probably the aberration. It was planned as a different kind of town really so, in that respect, we’re lucky that the market that we now find ourselves in is one which the town was actually designed for.”
Bracknell Forest Council chief executive Sue Halliwell said the authority is looking at doing visioning work for the next 25 years.
One large organisation is talking to the council about moving there from London but she said it is still necessary to spread the word to people about Bracknell and its regeneration as some still see the town in its old (pre-Lexicon) image.
“For me, it’s a branding exercise,” she said.
Andy Jansons revealed the West London occupiers have been among the early enquiries for his development of the former Dell site. And he described some of the sub-sectors showing interest.
He said: “You will not be surprised that e-commerce and last mile are in big demand because of the location advantages, M4, M25 etc.
“But also regional hubs and bigger organisations – and we’re actually still looking at distribution, still looking at light manufacturers, those needing local facilities.
“It’s early days but, interestingly, we’ve had a few enquiries from firms coming out of West London because of the rents, certainly inside the M25. So they are looking at coming out quite far now for slightly cheaper rents.”
Image (l-r): Nick Hardy, Andy Jansons, Sue Halliwell, Guy Parkes, Matthew Battle, UK Property Forums managing director and session moderator.
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