Hargreaves Services exchanges on 'major' development deal

(Sharecast News) - Industrial and property services provider Hargreaves Services announced the exchange of a major commercial property development contract on Monday.
The AIM-traded firm said its property development business, Hargreaves Land, exchanged the first major commercial contract on 'Unity', a mixed use development site at Hatfield, South Yorkshire, situated next to junction 5 of the M18 motorway.

It said Unity is a joint venture with regional developer Waystone, consisting of 250 hectares of land, of which 60 hectares is allocated for employment and commercial uses, with the rest having planning consent for residential development.

Hargreaves said the joint venture exchanged conditional contracts for the sale of a 32 hectare plot to a national retailer for the development of a 75,000 square metre national distribution centre and training facility.

The sale, which would realise around ?25m of revenue for the joint venture on legal completion, remained conditional on the grant of planning permission and construction of a new access road, which would provide direct access to junction 5 of the M18.

Legal completion was currently expected around the middle of 2021.

"We are delighted to exchange contracts with this leading national retailer on the first major commercial transaction at the Unity scheme," said the company's property director, David Anderson.

"The decision to base one of their key distribution hubs at Unity underlines the quality of the location from a logistical perspective."

Anderson noted that, in addition to the 190,000 square metres of commercial and industrial consents, the venture also had planning permission for 3,100 residential units at the site.

"We are encouraged by the ongoing level of interest in the scheme and look forward to building on this momentum over the coming year and beyond."

Looking at its current trading in the context of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, Hargreaves Services noted that on 26 March, it said that trading was in line with its expectations, with "no meaningful impact" on its activities at that point.

On Monday, it said that after a further month of trading under Covid-19, it confirmed that all business areas were continuing to trade in line with expectations, with the exception of its property business.

As a result of its contractors ceasing infrastructure work on the development site at Blindwells, near Edinburgh, due to the pandemic, the planned residential land sales to Bellway Homes and Cruden Homes - which were expected to complete in May - would not take place in the current financial year.

"Until work on site is restarted, it is not possible to put any definitive timescale on this deferral," the board said.

It added that it expected to provide a further update on trading in early June, following the end of the current financial year on 31 May.

At 1518 BST, shares in Hargreaves Services were up 5.71% at 217.76p. Hargreaves Serv