Kent’s economic success compared to UK plc highlights opportunities for investment beyond the M25

The London launch of the 33^rd annual Kent Property Market Report reminded London-based investors and property consultants of opportunities on the capital’s doorstep, with the county’s economy growing faster than the rest of the UK.

The latest figures from Kent County Council show that the county’s economy, (with Growth Value Added) grew by 3.2% in 2023, ahead of the national average of 2.8%. Also, the region’s employment rate for working-age residents has been steadily increasing, rising to 77.5% in 2023, up from 75.8% in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The Kent Property Market Report is produced by Caxtons Property Consultants, Kent County Council and Locate in Kent. It again shows the industrial and distribution sector is expected to be the county’s top-performing property sector. This is helped by leading logistics and warehousing developers making major investments and tackling the under supply of new high-quality space, which had been constrained over the last 10 years.

Each year Locate in Kent and Caxtons Property Consultants host a breakfast showcase for inward investment at the offices of JLL in Warwick St London. It brings the capital’s investors and property industry up to date on performances across the commercial property landscape. It comes a week on from the official launch of the 2024 KPMR report, held in Ashford with this year’s event highlighting investment opportunities at Ebbsfleet Garden City; Otterpool Park garden town near Folkestone; Panattoni Park, Aylesford, Dover Western Docks and Manston Airport, Thanet.

Nick Fenton, CEO Locate in Kent, said: “London is bursting at the seams with a continued shortage of employment land coming forward as more commercial sites are lost to housing, Kent has the land, lower costs compared to the capital and unrivalled transport connections for those businesses trading with Europe.

“The London launch of the Kent Property Market Report is an excellent showcase for investment opportunities in the county, not least in the logistics and distribution space which has continued its strong upward trend this year. Kent’s core strengths include its location and resilience so it’s no surprise that the county’s economy is outperforming the rest of the UK – businesses simply want to be here.

“Almost 78,000 property searches for office, land, industrial and commercial space were handled on our property portal in the last year alone. We’ve seen some exciting projects come through.  This latest report confirms the likely prospect of a lot more investment and opportunities to come.”

Caxtons’ Mark Coxon, Head of Commercial Agency, reported that the high demand for industrial space and the region’s role as a critical logistics hub has once again been a key success. This has provided a steady and encouraging level of economic activity, with Kent offering some of the largest speculative warehouses in the South East during the last 12 months.

Work recently began on the largest speculative property development in Kent in more than a decade, at Panattoni Park, Sittingbourne, where a total of 644,000ft² (59,830m²) of development is under way. The Kemsley site will eventually offer a total of 773,000ft² (71,814m²), on a 36-acre site (14.6-hectare) site. This is on top of Panattoni’s previous investment at Aylesford near the M20. All the space was pre-let, and is now home to Amazon, Evri, Fowler Welch (part of Culina), DHL, Marley Tiles and Tesco.

The second phase of LOC8 business park, of junction 8 of the M20 is also nearing completion. The mixed used business park, developed by Clearbell Partners III LP, a fund managed by real estate fund management and advisory business Clearbell Capital LLP has seen strong demand with Huws Gray.  Nivek Catering, Hitachi Construction, AT&T and NRS Healthcare among those

to have taken space to date High-quality space coming on stream and meeting untapped demand has seen logistics and distribution rents rise, with vacancy rates nationwide dropping from 9.2% to 5.2%. Much of the demand in 2024 has been for Grade A space, offering high levels of sustainability; and for speculative units over 400,000ft² (37,161m²). It is expected this trend will continue into 2025.

Kent has experienced minimal growth in business park rents this year, both Kings Hill and Crossways now have little availability, as have Chatham Maritime and Gillingham Business Park. The county’s scientific community, served by Discovery Park and Kent Science Park, continue to attract new occupiers. At Discovery Park, new and existing tenants took about 15,000ft² (1,394m²), including Asymchem, the Chinese company which set up its new European headquarters here, taking more than 115,000ft² (10,684m²) of space.

Compared to the rest of the South East, Kent has been performing well when it comes to increasing office rents. The largest office take-up this year was within the healthcare, pharma, and industrial sectors. The county’s office rents average £12.50 per ft² an increase of 2%, with some towns showing greater increases, such as Ashford 20%, Sittingbourne 6% and Medway 3%.