The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is pressing ahead with its attempts to solve the Shropshire “big hut” shortage with a plan to build a 640,000 sq ft warehouse in Telford.
Matthew Tilt of Lambert Smith Hampton
The scheme, being considered by Telford and Wrekin Council, is for a single mega-shed at the HCA’s Telford 54 site, a 78-acre business park development adjacent to the M54 motorway. An alternative application is for two separate units of around 300,000 sq ft each.
Telford 54, has been developed by the agency in a landscaped setting close to Stafford Park, one of the town’s major industrial estates, and is less than two miles from central Telford, which is undergoing a £250m reinvestment as part of the Southwater Programme.
Allocated as a “committed employment site” within the Wrekin Local Plan, Telford 54 is considered suitable for industrial, warehouse and research and development uses. The warehouse project is a collaboration between the HCA, which owns the brownfield site, and the local authority.
“To be known as Titan 640, this promises to be a major development for the West Midlands, bringing potentially hundreds of jobs and huge investment to the region,” explained Matthew Tilt, an associate director in the industrial and logistics team at Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) in Birmingham. It is acting on behalf of the HCA with joint agents Bulleys.
“This scheme for either a single unit or two units has the potential to attract major occupiers to what is a buoyant area.
“It is well documented that there is a national shortage of high quality industrial accommodation with excellent access to major motorways,” Tilt added. “Titan 640 delivers everything a major occupier requires from a logistics point of view in order to operate a successful business.”
Nick Bird is Midlands area manager for the HCA. “The agency is working closely with Telford Council estates and investment team to ensure that our considerable land portfolio is managed and developed to help fulfill local housing need and economic development goal,” he said.
“With ‘Titan’ we have an opportunity this year to bring to the market a build-ready site for large footprint development, complementing the run of land sales and development that is underway on the smaller plots at T54 business park.”
Bird added that there had been considerable interest in other plots on the Telford park, being offered for sale freehold or as leased design-to-build projects.
The council planning committee is expected to consider the warehouse application early in the autumn.
