Thousands of jobs earmarked for new Humber business park

The group is expanding its Melton West business park near Hull, which employs around 1,100 people, following the acquisition of the neighbouring Melton Park last December. The deal was the company’s largest ever land purchase.

The acquisition increases the size of the business park to 200 acres, creating one of Yorkshire’s largest commercial sites, which has the potential to generate a total of 5,000 jobs.

It follows a recent survey by RICS which found that available industrial property is still proving hard to come by in Yorkshire. Respondents reported a fall in availability during the first quarter of the year.

The extended Melton West business park will provide up to 2.85m sq ft of industrial, warehouse, distribution and office space, which includes 750,000 sq ft of existing operations, including Heron Foods and Allam Marine.

Wykeland said there was the potential to create anything from 10,000 sq ft buildings up to the potential for a single 1m sq ft ‘mega shed’.

It added that the development is one of only a handful of sites of such scale across the North of England.

The business park has enterprise zone status, meaning investors can benefit from discounted business rates.

Wykeland managing director Dominic Gibbons said: “Melton West is a successful, well established and well recognised development, so we have decided to build on the brand in launching the expanded business park.

“We know there is significant pent-up demand for the opportunities offered by Melton West as there has been no new, substantial development of this type and size in the Humber area in recent years.”

The agents are Hull-based Garness Jones and CBRE.