The consensus in the region’s property industry is that it has fared relatively well during the economic recession. While that remains the case, the recovery is hard going and has to be fought for, which is where the strengths of the south coast come in. These are a well educated and skilled workforce together with good road and rail communications. The maritime location is also vital with
Southampton being the most active port for cruise liners in northern Europe. That brings a range of skills, as does the Royal Navy in
Portsmouth. It is no accident that BMW located its Rolls Royce car factory at Goodwood which taps into the skills from the naval dockyard and yacht builders. There are real success stories in the region, such as Lakeside where the new development by Highcross has been a success with 5,000 employed on the site, including those with IBM.
But there is a problem looming which has become something of a crusade for Adrian Whitfield of Lambert Smith Hampton, a shortage of prime industrial space. Whatever Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne does to get the economy moving, it may well come up against the barrier of a shortage of industrial space. Politicians should have thought about that when they changed the rules on rates on empty buildings. In contrast, there is no limit to the amount of new supermarket space being developed.
In a short space of time in a small area of Sussex around Littlehampton there is a new Asda, Morrisons and soon a vastly expanded Sainsbury’s to add to an existing Co-operative, Waitrose and Tesco. We can build giant stores, but close shops in town centres, and fail to build enough houses and industrial space, an odd sort of priority.