The little boulevard cafés, the artisan bakeries, the elegant boutiques: yes, Birmingham has plenty to offer, but now research from BNPPRE can add another to the list because in the last four years Birmingham's industrial property market has overtaken Greater Paris to become Europe's largest.

BNP Paribas Real Estate data shows that, based on average annual take-up of units over 50K SF, Birmingham has become Europe's largest logistics property market. Greater Paris is now in second spot.

Across the U.K. year-to-September take-up for distribution warehouses reached 22.2M SF, 13.2% ahead of the corresponding period last year, with Q3 leasing activity accounting for 4.6M SF.

Speculative completions are set to surpass this cycle’s peak, with BNPPRE predicting  that newly completed units for the full year will total 9.1M SF.

The Midlands claimed the largest share of demand nationally of warehouses of more than 100K SF, accounting for 35.4% of the total take-up, followed by the South East at 19.4% and the North West at 16.6%.