Christmas Greetings from Strategic Sites... and Thoughts for 2010

By any measure, 2009 has been a difficult year in the property industry. Many of us have seen large falls in the value of our investments and good people have left in an effort to reduce overheads.

But as we look forward to 2010 there are reasons to be cheerful. We have started to see a recovery in property values and occupiers appear to becoming more confident about expanding. Recently, we have also had a number of banks approaching us, wishing to lend us money. My word, things really are looking up!

From the perspective of Strategic Sites, 2009 has been a busy and successful year. We have secured a good number of deals, including the letting or sale of all our stock at the Magna development in Rotherham and many transactions at our investments in the North East , notably at Wynyard Park and North Shields.

We have also seen a massive increase in new lettings at the Advanced Manufacturing Park ("AMP") in South Yorkshire and we would like to thank Yorkshire Forward and the whole AMP team for their fantastic help & support. The recent announcement that Rolls Royce has chosen AMP for a major nuclear R&D facility can only cement this Park's reputation as the premier advanced research, development and manufacturing site in the UK.

But the highlight of 2009 was probably the announcement by the Learning & Skills Council that they will contribute £54m towards a new college in Huddersfield. This will be the catalyst for a major urban regeneration scheme that will come into full swing in the early part of 2010.

So next year will be a very busy one for Strategic Sites. It is also a year when we will move our Head Office into Leeds city centre, whilst continuing to enjoy a base at Wynyard Park in the North East. From Leeds and Wynyard we will be able to pursue more urban regeneration and business park projects throughout England.

We all look forward to working with you and wish you every happiness for Christmas and the New Year.