HTA Real Estate completes various lettings to automotive firm

HTA Real Estate, a North East industrial property company, has completed a trio of lettings to The Parts Alliance.

The automotive parts distributor - which acquired SAS Autoparts in 2016 - has signed leases on two units at Blaydon Trade Park in Gateshead, as well as a property at Mandale Business Park in Durham.

HTA Real Estate secured the lettings at Blaydon Trade Park on behalf of asset manager, Kames Capital, and acted on behalf of Teesside-based developer, Mandale, on the third letting at the former LG Philips Displays factory in Durham.

Nick Atkinson, director at HTA Real Estate, said: “Our North East market coverage enables us to assist expanding companies such as The Parts Alliance in providing them with a range of viable property opportunities.

“These transactions perfectly illustrate the high level of demand we are experiencing for good quality units under 5,000 sq ft, which are located in close proximity to the region’s major road network.”

The Parts Alliance is said to be one of the UK’s biggest groups of automotive parts distributors with 196 branches nationwide and a turnover exceeding £475m.

The company’s new sites will each employ approximately a dozen staff and incorporate a small trade counter, a call centre operation and racking for the storage of a wide range of car parts. A small fleet of vans will be based at each site to provide a swift customer delivery service in response to new orders on a daily basis.

Ben Briant, property director at The Parts Alliance, added: “These new sites at Blaydon and Durham have successfully opened in recent weeks and will enable us to serve customers more quickly and efficiently which is integral to our business.

“We have ambitious plans to grow our national coverage and we are actively looking for further locations across the UK, so that we can position ourselves closer to independent garages and the group’s growing national accounts portfolio.”