By Jason Lynock, Sales Director, Smart-Space Instant Buildings: “As we hit 2023 there’s little let up in the need for additional storage space across the UK’s industrial landscape. Each day seemingly sees another colossal new warehouse development underway, whilst a great many companies find themselves short of and running out of covered space.
Unless you’re one of the big brand mail order fulfilment companies or one of the growing number of 3rd party logistics providers, chances are you’re probably struggling to find a way forward – without the huge upheaval and expense of moving premises. This is why so many businesses turn to a whole range of stopgap storage solutions, even opting for shipping containers and articulated trailers. Yet whilst these solutions appear quick, easy and convenient on the face of it; all too often they end up becoming hugely expensive and very unproductive in the long-term.
As a business with better solutions, it frustrates us at Smart-Space that, faced with an immediate need for additional on-site space, a company will arrange to have a couple of containers or trailers delivered for a quick resolution only to find they’re still on site two or three years later – costing substantially more than the company ever considered, whilst proving very impractical at the same time.
If you’ve ever tried to use what is essentially a dark, metal box for storage you’ll understand the frustrations of back-filling and the challenge of ever being able to locate your goods again. Anyone who has found themselves in this situation will attest to the limitations of both containers and trailers as storage solutions. We’ve changed lives when we’ve been able to replace several unsightly containers for a spacious, practical instant building – they can see exactly where everything is stored on organised racking in light, airy units! In terms of productivity and workflow there is no comparison.
Rapiscan, a Smart-Space customer, chose to work with us for exactly that reason. “A priority for us was to relocate all of the stock we were storing in a number of unsightly and impractical, stacked shipping containers” explained Jim Spencer, Inventory Manager at Rapiscan. “We had been very unpopular with our auditors as it had been previously hard to access and identify these very expensive pieces of equipment”.
People also wrongly believe that containers and trailers are not subject to local authority approvals, which of course they are if they’re on site for more than 28 days of continuous use. It’s generally considered that – because a shipping container or trailer is not a building – they’re not subject to the approvals you’d expect to gain for a building. That’s not the case. Whilst each local authority will take a view based around specifics on a case-by-case basis, they all work to the same guidelines. The planning laws clearly state that if a unit is in use for more than 28 days then it’s subject to planning permission – except for a very few exclusions. Complying with the local authority approvals is not difficult and it’s not too time consuming either, when you have the resources to handle numerous applications, as we do. It’s a service we offer for all of our clients because trying to do this as a one-off or without experience can be a frustrating and time-consuming job. We’ve often made retrospective applications too when there’s been an urgent need for the space, which we’ve done on many occasions successfully over the years. We can usually correctly assess the criteria to predict the likelihood of successful applications.
So if you’re currently looking at your options for increasing your covered storage or production space on site and want to get the best value, compliant solution for your specific requirements, call us and we’ll make it our job to provide the space you need: taking you through the process quickly and cost-effectively”.
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