The development, located under two miles east of Haverhill, is to be called the Stour Business Park with six acres already allocated for employment in West Suffolk Council’s adopted local plan, the Rural Vision 2031.
Jaynic has made representations to the council to seek an extension to the existing employment allocation in the new emerging local plan on the remaining 14 acres, which may also include land for recreational sport and open space.
Nic Rumsey, managing director of Jaynic, said: “We have bought the Karro site because we are seeing substantial demand for warehousing space at our other sites in Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket and believe that this location will prove attractive to potential occupiers.
“We would expect to have a planning application in by the summer and in the meantime, we will offer the site for open storage,” added Rumsey.
Will Staniland, partner at Rumsey and Partners said “We are delighted to have completed this acquisition of a site that has remained unused for 12 years, to be able to offer the market place a well located and accessible plot, of a scale unavailable elsewhere in Haverhill, with the potential of accommodating a single facility of up to 250,000 sq ft.”
Philip Woolner, joint Managing Partner, Cheffins, said: “This is a great time to bring a new industrial site to the market. There is a major shortage of industrial stock available, with warehouse buildings experiencing considerable price growth across the region as supply cannot keep up with the consistent demand seen for the past few years. This site provides the opportunity to cater to a range of outside storage uses in the first instance, and has the longer-term potential for the development of manufacturing or logistics space. In the recent Cheffins Datapoint research, we found that only six per cent of available warehousing stock at the end of 2020 was new build, whilst Grade A buildings accounted for a massive 63 per cent of take-up, illustrating the level of demand from occupiers for quality product.”
The purchase price is confidential but includes a contribution towards capital improvement works that the vendors need to implement together with Jaynic demolishing the existing abattoir building on the site and the existing conveyor bridge which linked the two Karro sites over the A143.
The site is well-located for access to the principal East of England road network, especially the A143, which runs between Haverhill and Bury St Edmunds. It will benefit from proximity to the Haverhill Northern Relief Road currently nearing completion, removing the need for traffic to go through the centre of Haverhill. This will give fast access to the A1307, which runs westwards to the A11/M11 and Cambridge, and the A1017.
Karro, part of the Eight Fifty Food Group, has recently been acquired by Canadian group Sofina Foods. It will continue to undertake pork product food processing and production on the northern site on the other side of the A143, that it is retaining.
Agents for the scheme are Rumsey & Partners and Cheffins.