Emerging Opportunities in Lincolnshire

Growth pressure from the South East, working up the A1 corridor from Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire is stimulating unprecedented demand for serviced employment land in south and central Lincolnshire. Opportunities are emerging to bring allocated commercial land to the market in locations such as Bourne, Horncastle, Louth and Sleaford.

Bourne

A Serviced Sites Study carried out on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) identified that the South Kesteven area of Lincolnshire has less than a year’s supply of constrained land available for development. This has led to LCC prioritising land in this area for future usage by bringing forward previously used agricultural property for development to business usage, namely General B2 and General Office B1(a) classification.

The plot of land being promoted is located on the east side of the town of Bourne, which is 27km north of Peterborough, which is a further one hour to London by train. Anecdotal evidence generated by local businesses in the area shows that there is a real need to develop work space as businesses look to expand without relocating. Housing in the area is relatively low cost and the transport links to London and the wider Midlands are excellent.

The land has an area of 9.4 hectares (22.09 acres) and is well served by the Highway network. Utilities are in close proximity and should enable individual plots to be serviced prior to sale. LCC will seek to have the development roads and utilities completed by 2019 to enable potential developers to purchase land and construct buildings.

Horncastle

The successful and popular Horncastle Industrial Estate, home to Polypipe, Morton Printers and Balcan Engineering has been identified in the Emerging East Lindsey Local Plan for further growth.

A scheme to expand the estate by up to 32 acres with an initial nine acres being provided (fully serviced) as a first phase is being developed.

Initial financial viability has been established and early technical feasibility work to confirm that the required utility capacities are available is being progressed.

It is anticipated that planning permissions will be sought in late 2018 with construction works being undertaken during 2019.

Investor involvement in partnering Lincolnshire County Council in servicing the site or purchasing land for the construction of premises is welcomed.

Louth

Louth is an affluent and traditional market  town in Greater Lincolnshire, and has won numerous awards both for the town centre as a whole and the quality of its independent retailers. Previously crowned as Britain’s favourite market town, Louth is also emerging as the intelligent choice for investors looking for a dynamic location to base and develop their business. With space to grow, support to flourish and the kind of infrastructure development plans that support global operations, Louth can offer the sectors, the talent, the premises and access to customers, markets and supply chains you would expect from a leading business location - but at a more competitive cost than other major UK areas.

Matching your ambition, East Lindsey District Council is currently investing in the preparatory works required to bring forward new, purpose built and fully serviced employment land – expanding Louth’s Fairfield Industrial Estate to over 120 hectares (it is anticipated the new employment land will support B1(c), B2 and B8 developments). The estate, which is already home to industry leading manufacturers, will serve as the ideal base for investors looking to take advantage of supply chain opportunities linked to the industrial clusters emerging along the South Humber Estuary.

Louth also has a growing population and moving forwards, it will play a key role in delivering a large proportion of residential development in East Lincolnshire as well as the infrastructure required to support sustainable population growth. This will be further supported by a wide range of high quality employment, shopping, education, recreation, health and community services.

Sleaford

Sleaford will play a key role in delivering the future housing and employment growth needs of the Central Lincolnshire local plan area. The town will see an additional 4,500 new dwellings built over the 25 year plan period. This will represent a growth of almost 53%. The majority of these new homes will be provided through two new urban extensions, each providing approximately 1,600 new homes. Supporting that housing growth will be two new neighbourhood centres, providing retail, community and medical facilities, along with two new primary schools and a secondary school.

As a major employment location within the Central Lincolnshire area, Sleaford Enterprise Park has been identified as a strategic employment site providing almost 15 hectares of green-field employment land immediately adjacent to the strategically important A17. It is expected that this site will deliver over 2,000 jobs once fully developed. This site has been recently acquired by North Kesteven District Council in order to bring the land forward for development.

In recognition of the needs of meeting the growing population of the town, currently standing at 20,000, additional projects are being brought forward to meet that growth. Plans have been announced to deliver a new  45 acre campus style Grammar school on the edge of the town to deliver world class co-educational facilities and meet future pupil growth demands.

North Kesteven District Council have received £2 million of Single Local Growth Funding to provide highway junction improvements to the A17 northern bypass to increase highway capacity to meet the additional housing and employment growth in the town. Retail development schemes are also progressing on two key town centre sites to deliver more retail and leisure provision.