Bromwich Hardy: Governments change but it is business as usual in West Midlands
Market commentary by Mark Booth, senior surveyor at Bromwich Hardy in Coventry.
Copyright Mike Sewell 2025
Despite continuing changes in Westminster and the UK’s seventh prime minister in ten years, the Warwickshire and West Midlands has remained resilient.
From our Coventry base, we have been winning new instructions both regionally and nationally – including a residential development opportunity on the Isle of Man – a fair spread geographically.
The industrial market continues to lead in our region, with the strongest market this year being the mid-box market, and industrial stock from 20,000-80,000 sq ft is still proving popular.
Arguably, because of Warwickshire’s ideal central location in the UK, with fast access to markets in all directions via the national motorway, the big-box market is showing positive signs currently, and is one sector we expect to grow even faster as the year progresses.
Multi-let estates, including trade counter schemes, have not performed as well as in recent times, but we are optimistic this will pick up in the second half of the year.
The office market is unpredictable with Birmingham having a particularly slow start to the year, but elsewhere across the West Midlands, we would say it has remained steady if unspectacular.
Retail and leisure, which has been fairly negatively portrayed in the media recently, has performed well, particularly in Coventry city centre, which is encouraging and a trend that we hope spreads. Especially as the city waits patiently for the development of the City Centre South Regeneration Scheme.
One of the latest properties we’re marketing for rent includes a large warehouse on the edge of Alcester on behalf of The Duchy of Lancaster, the private land estate held in trust for King Charles III. We’re also marketing circa 118,000 sq ft of industrial space on Bayton Road Industrial Estate, on behalf of Mileway.
Overall, the Warwickshire/West Midlands market has continued to perform well, if sticky in some areas, and the total combined rent per annum for all leases we’ve transacted over the past 12 months is £3,133,293.22
The total combined sale price for all of our sales in the past 12 months is £28,509,515.20.
Staff-wise, we continue to grow, with the arrival of graduate surveyor Harvey Wells and new partner Jo Watters earlier this year to support the firm’s continuing growth, which means the number of partners at Bromwich Hardy has grown from three to five in the last 18 months, with the other partners being Tom Bromwich, Dawn Cooper, David Penn and Ed Bunbury.
From September, Bromwich Hardy will be employing two apprentices and two graduates, including Will Dorrell, a member of Coventry Rugby U18 Academy and of the England Men’s Pathway Front Five Development Camp. He will spend one day a week at university, two days training with Coventry RFC, and the rest of the week working for Bromwich Hardy as an apprentice surveyor.
During the past 12 month, Bromwich Hardy has completed a further office fit out with break-out space completed last November in recognition of employee well-being, plus another boardroom with space to accommodate the whole team as well as clients.
So we are geared up for continuing growth at Bromwich Hardy with all the pieces in place.
All we need now is a pro-business administration that understands what drives growth!
You can see all of the commercial property listed by Bromwich Hardy on NovaLoca here.
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