Self storage finance in the North West

The North West contains the Lake District, home to Scafell Pike, England's highest peak, and Windermere, the largest natural lake in England. We arrange the full range of self storage finance across the North West, from the acquisition finance and commercial mortgages that buy and hold a trading store to the bridging, development, mezzanine and equity behind a build, a conversion or a container site. Self storage market data is published nationally by SSA UK and Cushman & Wakefield, so the figures above are presented as clearly-labelled benchmarks, while the housing-transaction figure is genuinely local Land Registry data for the towns we track.

The North West pairs big-city demand in Manchester and Liverpool with affordable edge-of-town land, which is why both purpose-built stores and container sites are expanding here. National occupancy averaged 74.5 percent across all stores on the SSA UK and Cushman & Wakefield 2026 report, and well-located North West stores trade ahead of immature supply elsewhere. For investors the region offers materially keener entry pricing than the south with a genuinely deep customer base.

On capital values, the strongest public evidence comes from the listed operators' external valuations: Big Yellow's London and commuter-town weighted stores were valued at £458/sq ft of lettable area and its regional Armadillo stores at £185/sq ft (Big Yellow FY2026 results (JLL-valued), Mar 2026), with Safestore's UK estate at about ~£364/sq ft on a derived basis (Safestore FY2025 results (Cushman & Wakefield-valued), Oct 2025). The evidenced span from regional secondary to prime London and the South East runs at roughly £185 to £460/sq ft, on a going-concern trading basis rather than vacant possession.

Development activity is visible across the region: we track 4 recent self storage planning applications in the North West through council planning registers, part of a national feed covering more than 60 local authorities.

Benchmark figures from SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield; Savills, European Self Storage Spotlight. Regional commentary draws on SSA UK / Cushman & Wakefield (UK Annual Industry Report, 2026).