Huge warehouses still remain empty
TWO massive warehouses on the outskirts of Northampton are still standing empty a year after they were first unveiled to business leaders.
Exactly a year ago today developer ProLogis held a champagne launch of the buildings, which cover a combined area of 500,000 sq ft to the west of Northampton.
Despite the firm predicting interest in the buildings would be strong, they remain empty today, with the firm identifying the global credit crunch as one reason preventing retailers from taking them over.
But anti-expansion campaigners have argued the empty developments are a result of an oversupply of warehouse 'sheds' in Northampton.
Northants Residents Alliance member, Roger Kingston, said: "The recession has hit everybody but the truth is we don't want any more of these sheds in Northampton.
"At the moment it feels like we're turning the town into a 'shed city' and this is just another example of it."
When plans for the two warehouses were approved by the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation (WNDC) in July last year, committee members joked they were "large enough to get the whole town centre in".
Yesterday, Mr Kingston said one of his main concerns was what had been lost to make way for the buildings.
He said: "Essentially, we've lost some lovely fields just to create two empty sheds. It's very sad."
When plans for the two warehouses were first revealed, ProLogis admitted no tenant was lined up to take them on, but predicted the two units could create 1,000 new jobs.
Yesterday the firm, which also built the new Sainsburys distribution centre in Pineham, admitted the timing of the development had not been ideal.
A company spokesman said: "We're naturally disappointed that we haven't yet secured a customer for this speculative warehouse development.
"These are high quality buildings and leading edge in terms of energy efficiency, which makes a significant improvement to the operational costs of the end user.
"Northampton is a true centre of excellence for the logistics industry in terms of both its location and the availability of skilled employment, which helped to attract Sainsbury as our first customer.
"While our timing could have been better in bringing these units to the market in less testing economic times, as a long term investor in the properties we construct, we're confident these buildings will be let to high quality companies time and again in the years to come."
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Weather for Northampton
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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