Attendees at the United Kingdom Warehousing Association (UKWA)'s Warehousing Futures Conference were told that there is potentially a shortage of good quality new warehousing space in the future.

However, Sally Bruer from property consultancy Gerald Eve noted that while speculative warehouse and distribution centre construction would likely remain depressed for the next three to five years, there is plenty of warehouse space available in the UK.

"Landlords are under pressure and the incentives many are offering are some of the most attractive seen since the start of the 1990s," Bruer says.

Speculative construction means that warehouses and distribution centres are built before occupiers are identified.

A UKWA spokesman tells Forkliftaction.com News that the economic downturn has impacted on the number of tenants renting warehouse space.

"The UK government changed the tax laws relating to empty property rates in April 2008. Owners of industrial property that have been empty for more than six months now have to pay the same rates if the buildings were occupied," he says.

This is why owners are keen to fill their buildings within six months of them becoming empty and are offering price incentives to entice new tenants.

According to UKWA, the amount of new-build warehouse space completed in the first half of 2009 was lower than any time in the past decade - 2.5 million sqft (232,258 sqm) of new space was developed, and of that figure, only 1.2 million sqft (111,484 sqm) was speculatively developed.

This compares to the 44 million sqft (4.09million sqm) of warehousing that was built speculatively between 2006 and 2008.

About 150 delegates attended the UKWA Warehousing Futures 2009 conference at the Nottingham Belfry Hotel. It comprised a networking dinner on 5 October and a full day's conference session on 6 October.

At a small exhibition held alongside the conference, delegates met with 22 third-party logistics and warehousing suppliers that included Narrow Aisle Flexi, Toyota Materials Handling and Psion Teklogix.

The conference was organised by Gyros Communications in association with UKWA and the Logistics Leaders Network.