Premcor Directors Set Sights On Self-Storage Market

Directors of Premcor Estates, a privately owned commercial property development company, have begun supporting Yard Self Storage, a newly formed self-storage company with development and site-finding expertise as well as direct investment.

Yard Self Storage launched its first self-storage site on the outskirts of Newcastle in February and Premcor directors, Rob Lane and Simon Hawkins, are currently exploring the possibilities offered by several more sites up and down the country.

The pair’s investment in Yard, a standalone company, is complementary to their commercial development portfolio, which is not insignificant for a company which has only just celebrated its fifth anniversary. Hawkins, who began his career as a chartered surveyor and commercial agent, says, “We are currently involved in several large planning applications for various sites under our ownership, which is taking up a great deal of our time, but the opportunity to have some involvement in Yard was too good to miss. “We have known the managing director of Yard, Nick Bellwood, for many years. He is an experienced operator within the self-storage market, and we are pleased to be investing in his new business venture, which provides self-storage, drive up container storage and commercial storage. Storage has always been associated with office or house moves and these types of customers are definitely using the facilities, but we are also seeing a 50:50 split between those who are storing furniture and personal goods and businesses which benefit from having a safe, local storage facility where they can access their supplies on a flexible daily basis. Add in all the other factors such as death, divorce, downsizing and the challenging economic times of today, together, these factors combine to make self-storage a growth market.”