Budworth Hardcastle, with offices across Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire in Peterborough, Kettering Northampton and Milton Keynes have secured some notable deals over the last six months. The Agents have been instrumental in securing lettings 725,000sq.ft of warehouse and distribution space in three key transactions.

In late Summer 2009 Taiwanese based Kenmark signed up to the final warehouse unit on the first phase of the ProLogis Eurohub site. The Kenmark letting was the final unit in this 900,000sq.ft scheme. When the manufacturer of digital televisions is in full production it is anticipated that in excess of 100 jobs will be created in Corby.

Gilbert Harvey, a Director of Budworth Hardcastle has also negotiated a letting on the 176,000sq.ft warehouse at the Willowbrook Centre located on Curver Way within the town. Assured Logistics Ltd will centre its supply chain activities from this large facility. The building was relet immediately after the previous occupational lease expired.

Again within North Northamptonshire, the firm of agents have completed a letting of the brand new 405,000sq.ft distribution warehouse facility at ProLogis’s North Kettering employment area. Oxford University Press who have been based on the southern edge of Corby for some 25 years will be vacating their 270,000sq.ft warehouse unit and moving three miles down the road to the ProLogis Park.

Budworth Hardcastle and Burbage Realty are the joint letting agents for this scheme.With the letting to OUP , only a 123,000 sqft remains vacant on this strategic employment park.

Philip Arnold, the Director at Budworth Hardcastle who dealt with the Kenmark and Oxford University Press deals points to the strengthened brand of North Northamptonshire as being significant in attracting inward investment and facilitating growth of established companies within the area.

“Promoting the northern part of the County as a single entity enables those of us looking to attract inward investment to focus on the combined pool of labour that the four local authorities within North Northants offer any prospective employer; furthermore the coordinated approach to housing growth and region wide infrastructure improvements provide the necessary synergies to enable the area to be promoted in a way which would not be possible if the individual Local Authorities were to promote themselves independently”.

He goes on to say “Kenmark looked at a number of different locations across the UK. We were able though to provide a building that suited their requirements and the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA), North Northants Development Agency and Corby Borough Council pulled out all the stops to sell the undoubted benefits of the North Northants brand.”

The fragility of the economy and the prospect of cutbacks in public expenditure could create additional problems for the area. Philip Arnold goes on to say “The growth agenda for this area has been based on the fundamental principle that job opportunities will grow in parallel with the population growth brought about by new housing provision. We have now reached a stage where planning consents for housing development can be triggered. It would be unfortunate if we entered a period where infrastructure projects were delayed .This could hit employment growth harder than housing provision targets thus distorting the key objective of balanced sustainable growth in the area “.