‘Positive trends will drive demand for Logistics’

David Sleath, CEO, SEGRO

The UK and Continental Europe will continue to benefit from big trends like urbanisation and the internet revolution that have helped the sector in the last few years, David Sleath, CEO, SEGRO,  told The Real Estate Day.

‘The warehouse and logistics sector has been benefitting for a number of years now from some big structural tailwinds,’ he said. ‘One of them is the urban population growth that we are seeing across Europe, that we see in London and of course Paris and all the other big cities. More and more people want to live and work in urban centres and that creates huge demand for space and, for people in our sector, it creates the opportunity to meet that demand’.

The other big trend benefitting the logistics sector is the growth of online shopping which shows no sign of slowing down. 

‘The internet revolution is another structural tailwind,’ Sleath said, ‘All over Europe people are buying more and more things online. The UK is ahead with sales penetration touching 20% of all retail sales, most countries in the Continent are somewhere behind that percentage but I think we can all agree that most people are going to be buying more stuff online in the years ahead rather than less.’

That really positive trend therefore will continue to drive demand for occupiers of logistics assets, not just in the UK but across Continental Europe. ‘I think it ‘s got some time to play out yet’, he said.

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