Council at centre of entrepreneurial city
Entrepreneurial Portsmouth City Council – which was a double winner in last year’s South Coast Property Awards – is proving it can be successful on multiple fronts.
One of its developments, Dunsbury Park – which was named Business Park of the Year in the 2017 awards – will eventually comprise 665,000 sq ft of warehouse, manufacturing and office space, of which 80,000 sq ft has been let.
Eventually the site, next to junction 3 of the A3(M) near Havant, will also have hotel and conference facilities totalling 60,000 sq ft.
The city council was also named Portsmouth’s second best industrial dealmaker of the year by CoStar, the global property intelligence firm.
The council’s successful leasing of the purpose-built manufacturing and industrial units it built in Limberline Spur, Hilsea Industrial Estate, put it behind only property consultancy firm Vail Williams in terms of industrial deals completed in the city in the past 12 months, according to CoStar.
The prestigious industry recognition came after the council scooped two top awards at the South Coast Property Awards. Apart from Town/City of the Year, the council won Real Estate Executive/Team of the Year for its property and investment team.
The council’s director of regeneration Tristan Samuels said: “We’re delighted that our top performance as an entrepreneurial, commercially-minded council continues to gain recognition from the industry particularly after such a successful year for our development, property and investment teams in 2017.
“Limberline is a top-class development. We built 22 high-quality, energy efficient units there to boost the local economy, to create more jobs and to generate new income for the council and it didn’t take us long to let them out to local businesses. Our main driver is to make Portsmouth an even better place to live and work but it’s a massive extra bonus to have our achievements, in competition with our private sector competitors, recognised for the third time in the past few months.”
The Limberline Spur site was previously occupied by the council’s former tenants AE Hadley shopfitters. The new units were designed and built by contractors Dawson Wam and range from 441 sq ft to 2,820 sq ft. The development cost £4.4 million and the total rental income from the scheme will be in excess of £250,000 per year.
The council is also nearing completion on the building of new shopping development Portsmouth Retail Park on land the authority purchased at North Harbour last year.
The scheme will bring in an extra £1m a year to council coffers and will welcome eight shopping and food outlets and a gym.
Work on the development, next to Tesco Extra, in Southampton Road, is being carried out by property solutions firm Simons Group, which is on target to meet its original completion deadline and hope to be moving tenants in over the next couple of months.
The development is fully let to: Decathalon, Subway, Costa, Greggs, Pure Gym, Home Bargains, Jollyes pet superstore, Explore Learning and The Vet.
Portsmouth City Council is leading the way nationally in terms of property investment and Portsmouth Retail Park is the 11th purchase in the council’s property investment portfolio which generates £4.3m per year for council services.
This commercial approach has meant the council has been able to mitigate the ongoing cuts to council spending and protect services that would otherwise be at risk.
