London faces logistics space supply crunch as e-tail booms

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 7, 2022

E-commerce businesses looking to expand in and around London could face challenges in the future as the amount of logistics space in the region is squeezed.

A report from London First and CBRE said it could run out of available space by the summer if the current rate of space take-up continues.

London and the Southeast in general have seen logistics space being snapped up as already-growing online sales surged even more due to the pandemic.

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CBRE said that rental prices for prime logistics space are going to continue rising in the next five years and we’ll also see plenty of development.

But for now, only 1.8% of total stock in London and the Southeast is available for rent, compared to 6.2% in 2019 before the pandemic struck.

It could mean that businesses looking to expand could be thwarted due to the lack of logistics space and those with smaller budgets could struggle in the face of rising rents.

But for the long term, CBRE is more optimistic and said that will see more flexible developments with more multi-storey spaces being created and also underground schemes schemes.