Kirkby Diamond Milton Keynes racing ahead

As another year comes to a close, Milton Keynes has yet again demonstrated its competitive advantage and resilience in a face of challenging environments. Tillbrook's Red Bull Racing illustrated this with the recent retention of their Formula 1 constructor's title, AG Barr echoed this with their recent investment in a new soft drinks manufacturing plant at Magna Park and Kirkby & Diamond have seen this with the consistent level of market activity being handled by their practice throughout 2012.

We have seen a continuing level of good occupier demand throughout the year across the office, industrial and retail sectors in Milton Keynes. For instance, Aves Digital chose Milton Keynes as their UK headquarters; the Hong Kong based consumer goods manufacturer chose our new city from a shortlist of towns throughout the South East. Our institutional client convinced Aves Digital to secure Milton Keynes as their long term base with the sale of a modern distribution unit within the town.

Meanwhile in Central Milton Keynes, Midlands recruitment company Barker Ross chose CMK for their newest office location to capitalise on the ongoing demand from local employers wanting to recruit staff across all skills and sectors.

In the retail sector, we have seen one of the Centre MK's longest standing independents, Cyclo Sports, being taken over by Midsummer Sports. Kirkby & Diamond successfully acted to enable the racquet sports specialist secure their first Milton Keynes store within the prestigious mall.

We have also seen ongoing strength with our acquisitions and consultancy department providing specialist commercial property advice to office and industrial occupiers seeking to enhance value from their commercial property estates.

As well as growing strength in commercial agency, consistency is visible across all the practice’s disciplines especially building surveying, rural practice and Landlord & Tenant. For example in the professional department, business rates are a particularly hot topic generating concern for clients with the Government having announced their intention not to proceed with the 2015 revaluation, ostensibly to give the business community certainty. Commercial property values have fallen significantly since the 2008 valuation and these falls would have been reflected in the next revaluation now postponed towards the end of the decade. Cynics might suggest the fall in values has influenced the Government's decision. All is not entirely lost though as an e-petition has been launched and businesses are encouraged to add their names to the list at: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41598

Kirkby & Diamond are looking forward to strengthening performance in 2013 especially as they have expanded the firm by 30% with their Bedford office complementing the Milton Keynes and Luton practices. This enables the company to continue to provide comprehensive and proactive commercial property consultancy to all clients from family trusts and private clients to property companies and the institutions across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire with an ongoing focus on delivering effective property solutions successfully.