A SHORTAGE of development land is hindering new industrial and warehouse schemes around Southampton and Eastleigh, it emerged today.

Adrian Whitfield, associate director of Southampton-based commercial property agent Holland Mitchell, raised his concerns against a buoyant industrial market in Hampshire.

According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' industrial market survey, national enquiries have risen to their highest rate since the final quarter of 2000, and that is echoed locally.

Adrian said: "In south Hampshire, and focusing on the M27 corridor between Southampton and Portsmouth, confidence in the outlook for occupier activity has certainly picked up moderately compared with the final quarter of last year. The distribution sector is strong, although manufacturing is still subdued.

"This year interest rates are expected to be near their peak and small freehold units under 10,000 sq ft will remain in vogue and the leasehold market, for so long the poor relation, is now experiencing renewed confidence, with leasehold enquiries on the increase."

However, he added: "A lack of available development land is hindering new industrial/warehouse schemes rising from the ground, in particular at the western end of the M27 around Southampton and Eastleigh.

"Developers who are buoyed by the continuing rise in the last few years of freehold values are pushing their quoting prices to the limit and in an attempt to make a profit, having paid high land prices, are reverting to the classic two-storey business unit scheme that, on a note of caution, suffered dire consequences in the early 1990s."

Holland Mitchell is currently marketing a modern warehouse/ research and development unit of 20,000 sq ft at The Quadrangle Scheme, Abbey Park Industrial Estate, Romsey, and a 46,992 sq ft warehouse on Walworth Industrial Estate in Andover.