Historic Bradford Estates primed to expand industrial estates portfolio with new investment drive

Led by Managing Director Alexander Newport, Bradford Estates is primed to acquire additional multi-let industrial estates, complementing its existing land and property holdings, to strengthen its objective for diversified growth.

With a history dating from 1066, Bradford Estates’ principal asset is a 12,000-acre land holding on the Shropshire-Staffordshire borders used for regenerative farming, sustainable forestry, leisure, local housing and commercial use, including real estate investment and development.

Bradford Estates has two elements to its commercial investments. 

Bradford Industrial is a multi-let industrial estates investment business and the on-estate ‘Business Villages’ portfolio offers a diverse range of unique commercial properties to businesses operating in the local area.

Over the last 10 years, Bradford Estates has acquired eight institutional grade estates across England and Wales, totalling 230,000 sq ft. 

Occupiers include popular brands Screwfix, Halfords, Crown Paints, Euro Car Parts and Plumbase as well as many other regional and local industrial businesses. 

As a deep-rooted landowner and investor, Bradford Estates is now looking to acquire new assets at the value end of the investment spectrum, requiring hands on asset management and refurbishment, to align with its long term investment strategy, in the bracket ranging between £1m to £5m.

MD since 2019, Alexander Newport leverages an extensive experience of over 20 years as a commercial chartered surveyor. 

Having joined DTZ, now part of Cushman & Wakefield, as a graduate surveyor, he then trained as an analyst for family office Pelham Associates. 

He was a partner for 10 years at Quadrant, a nationally significant UK development and asset management business, who developed more than 1million sq ft of prime London offices and made 2 million sq ft of retail park investments during his time.

From partnering with top global investors at Quadrant, Alexander acquired the skills to understand the potential to transform his family’s landed estates business, Bradford Estates, into a significant property investment and development concern with a key limb being the accumulation of an institutional grade commercial property portfolio. 

He said: “As part of the next phase in our strategy, we plan to acquire properties which can be enhanced over time within strong local economies.

“We are looking for sites located within two hours’ drive time of our Estates Office or in the same regions as our existing assets, which offer a spread of occupiers from a range of business sectors. 

“We have a long term estate management strategy in line with being an historic land and property steward with our heritage going back nearly 1000 years. 

"Working with our occupiers, we apply a responsive management approach to generate positive improvements in our assets thereby ensuring future resilience.”

As part of the ongoing expansion, Bradford Estates has appointed Chris Hodson to join as Property Director in January. 

Chris, formerly a director at Savills and currently Head of Property Management at HS2 Ltd, will be working closely with Alexander to identify new investment opportunities and ensure performance of the expanding portfolio continues to be driven.

Alexander said: “We are excited to have Chris join us to manage the existing portfolio and work with me on the new acquisitions, which will draw upon his extensive property experience to help realise our ambitions.”

Chris added: “I am thrilled to be joining Bradford Estates at this time and look forward to contributing to the business’ future growth and continued success.”

The main Bradford Estates land holding sits in an accessible location at the confluence of M54, A5 and A41 and equidistant from both Wolverhampton and Telford, 35 minutes’ drive time from Birmingham.

On-estates surplus buildings are being converted into commercial units for local businesses under the Business Villages brand, with more than 150,000 sq ft in the current portfolio being used for workshops, storage, light industrial and retail uses. 

Each village has been converted from an ex-farmstead of high quality agricultural buildings into serviced, adaptable space with generous car parking, at an affordable price point to surrounding conurbations, as well as benefiting from excellent access to key transport arteries.

Bradford Estates has long term plans for Weston, a mixed-use, net zero community near Junction 3 on the M54 Growth Corridor and less than a mile from Cosford train station. 

Subject to formal allocation as a strategic settlement and subsequent planning permission, Weston would deliver 4m sq ft of employment space, 3,000 mixed-tenure homes plus a science and innovation campus with in principle interest from the University of Wolverhampton, a medical centre, schools and community buildings.

Weston will utilise leading renewable energy and sustainable technologies to be one of the first net zero carbon settlements in the UK, as well as transforming 500 hectares of private farmland into high-quality open space and green infrastructure while delivering its biodiversity net gain from within the site.