Scottish Central Belt

The Scottish Central Belt covers a large area from Glasgow to Edinburgh, with motorway networks encompassing the M8, M73 and M74. Most of the warehouse stock is located on the western side of Glasgow, close to the M8 and M77, as well as in the surrounding areas of Edinburgh and Glasgow airports. The region has a large stock of available secondhand units and has proved an attractive location for retailers and wholesalers. Logistics development activity is likely to be on a D&B basis, and, whilst units below 50,000 sq ft in size have seen rental increases, big shed rents are likely to continue to stay flat.

Scotland’s prime big shed market is hamstrung by a lack of stock, with occupier transactions focused on up-and built secondhand buildings in 2020. The only pre-let of note in 2020 was Amazon’s 150,000 sq ft pre-let at Glasgow Business Park, with all other 2020 deals involving the letting of secondhand buildings in Glasgow and Livingston. As such development activity has been driven by purpose-built schemes, with no speculative schemes getting underway in 2020. There is land with planning for large logistics buildings in the region, particularly around Bathgate and Glasgow, but we expect development activity to focus on smaller multi-let industrial estates in the short term, especially in the absence of an occupier pre-let. Availability is low, at 4.9%, but wholly secondhand, so the prospects for prime rental growth are muted at 0.8% per year over the next 3 years.