DUBAI's DP World has started construction of a 119,000-square foot warehouse at its London Gateway Logistics Park before securing a tenant.
Despite the speculative nature of the development, DP World said it had fast-tracked development due to customer demand and expects the warehouse to be complete in the third quarter 2023.
The development targets a 30 per cent carbon reduction during construction and 40 per cent lower operational carbon emissions, reports the UK's Seatrade Maritime News.
The logistics park has had its best year for new business in a decade, signing four new major tenants in the last 12 months: logistics businesses Transmec and Magnum, bonded warehousing firm London City Bond, and secure information and data storage service provider OASIS Group.
At London Gateway, we have the space, infrastructure and vision to support customers as they grow, with the new speculative LG119 likely to be of interest to any growing business looking to expand or establish new operations," said the UK's DP World park development chief Oliver Treneman.
"At the size of 400 football pitches, our rapidly expanding Logistics Park is the biggest of its kind in Europe and will become home to a workforce of around 12,000 within the next seven years," Mr Treneman said
London Gateway's throughput was up 10 per cent in the first six months of 2022 to 1.01 million TEU, breaking its previous best half-yearly result set in the preceding period.
This performance contributed to a record volume of cargo for DP World's ports in the UK, with a combined total of 1,937,000 TEU when factoring in throughput at Southampton, Britain's second largest container terminal," said DP World.