Secure, spacious, and strategic—explore Fraser Bond's portfolio of warehouses for logistics, storage, and distribution.
A warehouse is the one property type where the floor area tells you least. Clear internal height decides how many pallet positions you get from the same footprint, power decides whether you can ever automate, and yard depth decides whether an articulated lorry can turn. A unit that is 15% more expensive per square foot and 40% taller is usually the cheaper building to operate from — and the one that cannot take your racking is not a bargain at any rent.
Industrial space is quoted on Gross Internal Area, but your capacity is volume. Clear internal height to the underside of the haunch decides your racking configuration and therefore your pallet positions. We give you the height, the column grid and the usable cube — because two units of identical square footage can differ by a third in what they actually hold.
Incoming supply in kVA is the constraint most occupiers discover too late. Automation, chillers, charging a van fleet — all of it is capped by what the building has and what the network can deliver. An upgrade can take many months and cost a six-figure sum. We establish the existing supply and the realistic route to more before you commit.
Yard depth, dock levellers against level access doors, canopy height, turning circle and whether an articulated vehicle can enter, unload and leave without reversing onto a public road. Also floor loading in kN per square metre, which decides whether your racking or heavy plant can go in at all.
Our fee is paid by the landlord or the vendor. No fee to you and no retainer — and no reason for us to push you into a building because the incentive is better on our side.
Pallet positions or stock holding, racking type and height, vehicle movements per day and the largest vehicle you run, power demand now and after any automation, temperature control, staff numbers and parking, and the date you must be operational by. For industrial, the operation drives the search — the building follows from it.
Gross Internal Area and clear internal height, column grid, floor loading, incoming power in kVA, dock and level access doors, yard depth and turning, planning use class, rateable value and multiplier, EPC, and whether the lease is contracted out of the 1954 Act — before you view.
Rent-free against capital contribution, break rights and their conditions, repairing obligation and whether the roof and yard slab sit inside it, a photographed schedule of condition, service charge on a multi-unit estate, and reinstatement of racking, mezzanines and any power upgrade you install.
Industrial space is measured on Gross Internal Area — everything within the internal face of the external walls. That is a different basis from offices, which are quoted on Net Internal Area or IPMS 3, and different again from retail, which is zoned. It is the simplest of the three, and it is also the one that tells you least about whether the building suits you.
What you actually need is clear internal height, normally measured to the underside of the haunch rather than the apex. That figure decides how many levels of racking you can install, and therefore how many pallet positions the same footprint yields. A 20,000 sq ft unit at 6 metres and a 20,000 sq ft unit at 10 metres are not the same building and should never be compared on £/sq ft alone. The taller one is frequently cheaper per pallet position even at a materially higher rent.
Two further constraints sit alongside it. The column grid determines whether racking aisles can run cleanly or have to work around obstructions, which can cost you more capacity than a metre of height. And floor loading, expressed in kN per square metre, determines whether your racking, mezzanine or plant can be installed at all. Ask for all three in writing. A building that fails on floor loading cannot be fixed by negotiation.
The incoming electrical supply, measured in kVA, is where modern industrial requirements most often break. Conveyor systems, automated storage, refrigeration, paint plant and — increasingly — charging a fleet of electric vans all draw heavily, and the building either has the capacity or it does not.
The same applies to drainage, gas and any process effluent consent. None of these is visible on a floor plan, and all of them are far more expensive to resolve from inside a signed lease than from outside one.
Industrial and logistics planning did not get merged the way retail and offices did. Class B8 covers storage and distribution. Class B2 covers general industrial — processes that are not suitable in a residential area. Moving between B8 and B2 is a material change of use and needs planning permission, and local authorities are frequently resistant to B2 near housing because of noise, hours and vehicle movements.
What did move is light industrial, formerly B1(c), which now sits inside Class E alongside shops and offices. That matters in two directions. It gives a light industrial unit real flexibility — it can become an office, a gym or a clinic without consent. It also means that in areas with high residential values, light industrial floorspace is being lost to other Class E uses, which is part of why well-located smaller units have tightened.
Check the permitted hours too. A unit with a planning condition limiting HGV movements to daytime hours is unusable for an operation that dispatches overnight, and that condition sits on the planning permission rather than in the lease, so it will not show up in a solicitor's lease report unless someone asks for it.
Warehousing is not retail, hospitality or leisure, so from 1 April 2026 it falls on the standard multipliers: 43.2p below £51,000 rateable value, 48p from £51,000 to £499,999, and 50.8p at £500,000 and above. The top band is a cliff edge applied to the whole rateable value rather than a marginal rate, and a large distribution unit crosses it easily. 2026 is also a revaluation year, so the assessment itself may have moved — check the current entry rather than a historic bill.
Industrial leases are usually full repairing and insuring, and on a single-let building that means the roof is yours. Industrial roofs are large, often original, and expensive. Establish the age and condition, ask whether there is any existing defect, and either negotiate the repairing obligation down to a schedule of condition or price the liability honestly. The yard slab deserves the same question: heavy vehicle movement breaks up surfacing, and a full re-lay at the end of a term is a significant number.
Mezzanines are a recurring trap. Installing one normally requires building regulations approval, can trigger a rateable value increase, and is almost always a reinstatement item at lease end. Agree in the lease — not in correspondence — whether it may stay.
Since April 2023 a commercial building cannot be let below EPC E without a registered exemption. The proposed EPC C milestone for 2027 was dropped; the confirmed target is EPC B by 2031, and only for buildings over 1,000 square metres, subject to secondary legislation. Most warehouses comfortably exceed 1,000 square metres, so unlike high street retail this is a live consideration for industrial stock rather than a theoretical one.
For investors that is the central underwriting question on an older unit: what does it cost to take a 1980s shed from its current rating to B, and does the rent support it? Roof insulation, lighting and heating replacement are the usual levers, and a roof replacement that was going to be needed anyway is often the moment to do it.
Because you store in three dimensions and pay in two. Clear internal height to the underside of the haunch determines how many levels of racking you can install, so the same footprint at 10 metres holds far more than at 6. Comparing two units on £/sq ft without the height is comparing the wrong number — the taller unit is often cheaper per pallet position even at a higher headline rent. Ask for height, column grid and floor loading together.
Sometimes, but treat it as a project rather than a fit-out item. An increase runs through the distribution network operator, is quoted as a connection scheme, and is routinely measured in months and six figures rather than weeks and thousands. If your operation depends on automation, refrigeration or charging an electric fleet, establish the existing kVA, the available headroom and a written indication of cost and timescale before heads of terms — not after you have signed a term you cannot operate through.
B8 is storage and distribution. B2 is general industrial — processes not suitable in a residential area. Moving between them is a material change of use and needs planning permission, and councils often resist B2 near housing. Light industrial, formerly B1(c), moved into Class E in 2020, so it can now become an office, gym or clinic without consent. Also check for planning conditions restricting hours or vehicle movements; those sit on the permission, not in the lease.
On a single-let industrial building with a full repairing and insuring lease, you are — and industrial roofs are large, often original and expensive. This is one of the biggest unpriced liabilities in the sector. Establish the roof's age and condition and whether any defect already exists, then either negotiate the repairing obligation down to a schedule of condition limiting you to the state recorded at the start, or price the eventual liability honestly into your offer. The yard slab deserves the same treatment.
The minimum to let is currently EPC E, and the confirmed future target is EPC B by 2031 for buildings over 1,000 square metres, subject to secondary legislation. The EPC C milestone once proposed for 2027 was dropped. Most warehouses exceed 1,000 square metres, so this is a real underwriting question for industrial stock rather than a theoretical one. The practical levers are roof insulation, lighting and heating — and a roof replacement that was due anyway is usually the moment to address it.
