As the gloom in the economy eases, so the mood (and activity) in the area has improved with some centres displaying the first positive signs for some years.

This reflects the national statistics from consultants, accountants and economists and is best summed up by accountancy firm BDO saying "a turbulent 2009 has given way to a positive 2010, with commercial property transactions returning to pre-recession levels."

In a useful analysis, BDO reports that there were 10,000 commercial property transactions in March, an increase from 6,000 in January and 7,000 in February. This is the first time the monthly total has reached that level since June 2008 - 21 months ago.

BDO's Solly Benaim commented: "While we are seeing more transactions and higher values, the market is rightly not forecasting large growth in the future. The post election period will be crucial in determining the health of the market as decisions which would have otherwise been taken in the first quarter are likely to have been deferred until after 6 May."

He makes an interesting point that the general economic tightening has not stopped these positive signs coming through and, equally as significant, capital values have improved faster than was forecast.

Peter Brown of Brasier Freeth said: "There is much more going on now in Watford and we have had a spate of transactions recently, notably at September Properties' Eclipse office and industrial scheme. Here we have two industrial units under offer and are close to offers on another unit and the offices."

His firm has also sold a Barclays Bank property in Watford and has a deal for 929 sq.metres (10,000 sq.ft.) in Edward Hyde House (where Brasier Freeth has its office) under offer.

Tim Shaw of DTZ noted that there were a number of substantial requirements in Watford, notably from Altus Edwin Hill and the goods vehicle company Iveco. "Both require self contained offices up to 2,323 sq.metres." Also in Watford, the long drawn out saga of a redevelopment of Charter Place could be drawing to a close as
four companies have submitted plans for a £150 million mixed use scheme.

A decision is expected in June on who will get the job. The original partner in the development was Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) but it withdrew. This is a similar story to many in other towns in the UK in the past few years because of the recession.

In this case, CSC owns the 68,746 sq.metres Harlequin Mall which is adjacent to Charter Place and it also bought shops in Watford High Street with the object of a large scheme. Now it has put these on the market because it is not bidding for the Charter Place rebuilding. Watford Council is dedicated to getting a development going and has appointed the architects Benoy to produce designs for up to 37,160 sq.metres.

Regeneration remains the ambition of many towns in the Northern Home Counties and now Purfleet, Essex can be added to the list.

The government is keen on plans for a £500 million project on a 150 acre site with 3,500 homes and commercial space of 46,450 sq.metres (500,000m sq.ft.). Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation is seeking a partner for the project.

The hope is that this could be tied up by early next year and indeed the improvement in the property market and a stronger economy will help. At the moment, however, the view is pessimistic because developers have yet to break free of a reluctance to build.

On the other hand Purfleet has advantages in being 25 minutes by train to central London; close to the M25 and has good access to ports and, of course, the River Thames. There is also the £1.5 billion London Gateway port project at Thurrock which will have a major logistics park and will be a thriving business area.

Milton Keynes has held up well in the recession and the latest letting of 2,787 sq.metres (30,000 sq.ft.) at St George's House, Caldecotte Lake, to Countrywide, the property services business, is the largest this year.

Douglas Duff's Robert Shacklock said: "The features that attracted Countrywide were the high quality refurbishment by Frontier Estates and lakeside working environment together with access to the A 5 road." Andrew Dudley of Brown& Lee noted that "there is more activity in bigger offices and companies become more likely to make decisions about moving."

He also stressed that prospects for Bedford have been improved with the dualling of the A421 giving a vital M1-A1 link. That has engendered more interest at G Park and raised expectations that more land will be released for development, notably at a former brickworks owned by Hanson.

In a generally optimistic analysis of the market in the Northern Home Counties, Tim Shaw of DTZ said he expected the second half of the year to bring faster progress because the first quarter had been 'disappointing.' One substantial deal he cited was at Albany Place, Welwyn Garden City where Davies & Co let space to a Danish Bacon subsidiary. Shaw added that in some places supply of quality offices was tight, such as St Albans.

The pressure on landlords of the economic downturn has brought considerable changes in their approach to the market and far greater flexibility.

RO Developments (ROD) has pursued that policy strongly with its properties in the Northern Home Counties with a range of policies through offering buildings on a leasehold or freehold basis with a mixture of stepped rents, rent frees and fit out

contributions to attract occupiers. At RO24 Stonebridge, Milton Keynes, an industrial scheme developed in association with Oxford Securities and other multi tenanted developments, ROD keeps tenants notified of when adjoining properties become available so that relocation can be considered.

An example of this is MK Tourer which moved to Stonebridge in 2006. The company's James Page said: "We were not quite ready to move but there was only one large unit remaining and they put together a package which enabled us to surrender our existing lease and move to much larger premises on a stepped rent, enabling my business to grow."

ROD's Chris Bond said: "It has always been our policy to retain tenants wherever possible. By offering flexible packages, accepting surrenders that enable businesses to expand or, in some cases, contract and re-gearing leases to reduce short term liabilities, we have lost very few tenants during the recession."

ROD is not alone in adopting this corporate policy because flexibility has come to the fore during the recession and will continue, to the benefit of UK business. Even the banks have been more flexible and not forced companies to disgorge property onto a poor market.

Another example of ROD's approach is the deal with Ericsson at Hemel One, Hemel Hempstead. Here it offered 220 part serviced workstations in 2,118 sq.metres (22,800 sq.ft.) of offices on an 18 months' license. ROD also provided furniture, meeting rooms and IT, together with cleaning and catering services. Ericsson paid a fixed monthly fee that covers rent, service charge, insurance, rates, phone lines' rentals, cleaning and consumables.

Unit 1
Cardington Gate
St Martin's Way
Bedford

Location:
The unit is situated on Cambridge Road Industrial Estate which is on the south east outskirts and is approximately 2 miles from two junctions for the A421 Bedford Southern Bypass. The A421 links the M1 and the A1 and it will be entirely dual carriageway by December 2010.

Description:
The premises comprise an individually built modern warehouse unit with offices on two floors and a good size concrete yard for deliveries and parking. Constructed of a steel portal frame with brick and block and insulated profiled steel clad elevations, the premises benefit from:

• Eaves height approx 8m
• Apex height approx 9.95m
• 3 loading doors
• Sodium lighting and radiant heaters to warehouse
• Open plan offices with radiator central heating and double glazed windows

Availability:
Warehouse: 37,748 sq ft
Offices (G): 1,213 sq ft
Offices (1st): 1,125 sq ft

Terms:
The property is available to let
or for sale.

For further details and viewings, please contact joint sole letting agents:

Andrew Clarke, Douglas Duff
01234 213434

Richard Last, Brown & Lee
01234 350101

An important milestone for Stevenage will be reached when construction starts later this year of a 60,385 sq.metres (650,000 sq.ft.) science park in the town.

This is being led by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and will be initially funded by the government, Wellcome Trust and East of England Development Agency to build a biotechnology campus that will eventually be home to 1,500 scientists. The funding is in place for the £38 million on the first phase of 8,361 sq.metres (90,000 sq.ft.) which will have a bio incubator and two other buildings for follow on space and shared facilities.

GSK's Jackie Hunter expects the "first phase to accommodate 25 companies, many of which will be start ups." She added that GSK will be turning to private developers for future phases of the science park and will also expect more established occupiers.

The park will provide a boost for Stevenage where headline rents are only £150.64 a sq.metre (£14 a sq.ft.).Ian Harding of Bowyer Bryce said: "There has been no significant growth in office lettings but the performance of business centres has been tremendous with a flow of deals in the past three months. There has been little demand for larger offices."

He added that while there was a considerable amount of empty space, landlords were offering big incentives such as rent free periods of up to two years. On the other hand there was a shortage of small offices, where the demand was strongest.

TRE Hertford has completed 3 further lettings at Centrus Hertford to Power Valves International, James Douglas Limited and Edmundson Electrical. Some 15 months following completion of this development in Mead Lane, close to Hertford East Station and the town centre, over 60% of the warehouse units have now been let.

The latest letting of 6,445 sq.ft. to Edmundson Electrical on a new 15 year lease reflected a rent rising to £7.25 per sq.ft. in the fifth year. The letting agents for the development are Lambert Smith Hampton and BNP Paribas Real Estate.

The devastation caused by Ford ending car production in Dagenham has been eased as new developments in the area have pulled in new companies.

An example of this is the CEME Innovation Centre which now has 99% occupancy. Located near the Ford site and at the heart of the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence (CEME) campus, the innovation centre provides high specification offices and workshops for 40 new and growing businesses.

It is now managed by Oxford Innovation, an operator of such centres throughout the UK. Oxford's Kelly Brooker-Campbell said:"We have concentrated on increasing the range and quality of services and have also created a vibrant and inspiring business environment."

One company which has taken space at the innovation centre on the basis of a referral from an existing occupier is Symonds Hydroclean, which provides and services shopping trolleys for supermarkets.

Also in Dagenham, Howard Tenens has taken Gazeley's 21,646 sq.metres (233,000 sq.ft.) building, known as Voltaic, for use by Coca Cola. The attraction is that the property is not only well located on a key road with rail links in the Thames Gateway, but it incorporates many environmentally friendly and sustainable features.

For example there are photovoltaic roof panels which provide energy, ground source heat pumps which use the earth's energy to supply heating and cooling systems and also rainwater collection from roof harvests,conserving up to 400,000 litres of water a year which is re-used within the building. Coca Cola's Peter Latham said: "We have made a public commitment to reduce the overall carbon footprint of our business operations by 15% by 2020."

Claire Madden of Lambert Smith Hampton said: "The industrial market is active in the Northern Home Counties and there has been an increase in enquiries. One problem we have is a lack of stock."

A report from Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) shows that take up of industrial and distribution space in the UK, in units of over 9,290 sq.metres (100,000 sq.ft.), at 390,180 sq.metres (4.2 million sq.ft.) in the first quarter of the year was up 40% on the previous three months and 70% higher than in the same period of 2009. In particular space taken for industrial production rose and demand for retail led space remained buoyant.

Richard Evans of JLL said: "During the first three months the majority of the leasing activity took place in existing vacant stock built over the last 2- 3 years which has helped reduce vacancy levels in most markets."

A vital deal for the Olympic site in Stratford has been reached with Lend Lease and London& Continental Railways bringing forward a 100 acre office led development after three years of negotiation. Lend Lease will be the joint venture partner for the 557,400 sq.m. of mixed use space, including shops and residential accommodation. It is a logical deal because Lend Lease is also project manager for the adjacent Athletes' Village. Also in the area, developer Westfield has appointed CB Richard Ellis and Cushman & Wakefield for the 102,190 sq.m. of offices in its Stratford City scheme with a 10 storey building sitting above the shopping centre.

A master plan for transforming the North Circular Road (NCR) in Brent designed by Assael working with Atkins and Robinson Low Francis is taking shape and will transform 10 acres along the busy road. The plan is to mitigate the effects of a traffic flow of 100,000 vehicles a day with careful orientation of buildings and comprehensive landscaping which includes extensive planting of trees. Assael's Chris Shaw said: "This major scheme will regenerate and inject life into a deprived area of London. In designing the master plan we have aimed for a safe and pleasant environment."

Right across the many miles of the Northern Home Counties the mood has shifted towards the positive with a number of towns showing considerably increased activity.

That is certainly true in Watford where there have been a number of deals and also increased requirements. Equally as important is that agents are far happier about the situation and taking a positive view of the second half of the year.

Some of the uncertainty about progress in Stratford on new development, and others related to the Olympics, have been overcome and we seem on course for the 2012 Games.

There is no doubt that the industrial market has picked up strongly and it is interesting to speculate on how this will impact on development around Bedford now that the vital link road to the M1 and A1 is close to completion, It is certainly good news for the active Bedford office of Douglas Duff. It should be noted that east-west link roads have in the past had a big impact on the local property markets, such as the A50 from the M1 to M6.

What is encouraging about the stronger industrial market is that it coincides with a significant improvement in manufacturing in the UK with the decline in sterling helping exports.