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Five Reasons Why Self Storage is Still Booming
The self-storage industry is still going strong – and that’s official. The latest annual survey by the Self Storage Association UK (SSAUK) has painted an optimistic picture of the industry’s future.
The survey shows that more than four-fifths of the available space in the UK’s storage facilities (82.3%) is now let, up around 6% on the previous year, and one of the highest percentage increases on record.
Hamiltons Removals operate two secure self storage units in the heart of East Anglia, and we take a keen interest in all issues affecting the industry. Here we look at some of the key reasons why self storage has been thriving over the past 12 months.
People Are Still Moving House
Various Stamp Duty holidays announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak have allowed home buyers to pay no tax on properties valued under £500,000 for almost a year already. As a result of this financial incentive aimed at kick-starting the economy, more than 100,000 home were being sold each month up to March 2021.
With more homes being sold, this has invariably meant that more people had possessions they needed to store while they were between homes or hadn’t decided what to do with them yet.
There’s Increased Working from Home
With people being encouraged to work more from home, this has created a need for dedicated office space at home. This pressure on space has resulted in possessions, especially larger items such as furniture, needing to be moved out to make way for office desks and homeschooling areas.
Hamiltons two Safe N Stored sites have furniture storage units that are ideal for those in Diss, Thetford, Stowmarket, Bury St Edmunds and further afield looking to make a little extra space at home.
There’s Other People in the House Too
University students have also encouraged to learn online, with doing this from the family home rather than on campus. This also applied to primary and secondary school children as well because many schools were shut during the period of the survey.
Youngsters, like adults, needed dedicated areas to work at home. This meant self-storage was again a useful solution for many families who needed to create some extra space.
The Other Life Events
People have also been taking advantage of the pandemic to do all the home improvement projects they have been putting off. And, with the survey showing that people renovating their homes were three times more likely to use self storage, that often meant putting items into self storage while the painting, decorating and building was carried out.
Also, people are still suffering bereavements in the family or are getting divorced. Both of these domestic upheavals often meaning that possessions need to go into storage before they are disposed of, sold or taken to their new home. The SSAUK survey showed a death in the family is the most common life event where people needed to use self storage.
Business Trade is Booming Too
In order to meet with social distancing requirements, there has been increased demand from businesses needing to make more space in their workplaces or stores. Some businesses helped the NHS by storing PPE and other equipment.
There was also increased demand from online retailers who could no longer get ‘just in time’ stock as a result of the pandemic and Brexit border slowdowns.
Secure Self Storage in East Anglia from Hamiltons Removals
We operate two Safe N Stored secure self storage sites in East Anglia, at Harleston and Aldeby, both on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.
The Harleston site, which has a number of self storage rooms of different sizes, is currently open Monday to Friday from 09:15am – 17:15pm (call our sales team if you want to visit outside these hours). The premises are protected around the clock by CCTV cameras and alarms which are linked to Norfolk Police.
The Aldeby site has self-storage containers from 5’ to 20’ in size; this site also stores larger items such as caravans, motorbikes and trailers. The containers are also protected by CCTV and have both secure key fob entry and high-security padlocks.
If you would like to know more, call us on 01379 855203 or click here.