Could Hull Be An Exception To Commercial Property Trend?

With interest rates rising, inflation running in double digits, the expectation of higher taxes and regular predictions of recession, the UK’s economic outlook is far from rosy. According to Nationwide, even the housing boom is now over and prices have started to fall. 

 

In such circumstances, it may be little surprise to hear that commercial property also appears to be entering a downturn. 

 

For example, the Financial Times has cited evidence presented by Capco and Shaftesbury, major property owners in London’s West End, that commercial property values are dropping in the area. 

 

Nor is the problem confined to central London. The latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Commercial Market Survey has found the market is now in a downturn across the UK as buyer enquiries plunge. 

 

A key question that will concern both landlords and commercial property solicitors in Hull is to what extent the national trend will apply to the city, or whether it can be bucked by local forces. 

 

The reason such a question is worth considering is that there is one city on Britain’s North Sea coast where the market appears to be heading in a very different direction – Aberdeen. 

 

While causing inflationary trouble nationally and internationally, the rising price of oil looks set to transform the fortunes of the Granite City. Writing for Deadline News, commercial partner at surveying from DM Hall Stuart Johnson noted that the long decline in local property values caused by low oil prices since 2014 has gone into reverse. 

 

Stating that the energy crisis has “given rise to some optimism that we are about to experience a sea change in the local commercial property sector,” he noted that not only is Aberdeen set to gain from increased efforts to exploit the UK’s remaining North Sea gas and oil reserves, but also from developments in green energy such as the city’s bid to become the ‘net zero’ capital of Europe. 

 

Hull may not be an oil city, but its role as a centre for the offshore green energy industry may help it be another of the exceptions while the crisis rumbles on and momentum builds behind the renewables sector.