The Associated British Ports (ABP), the United Kingdom’s (UK) leading ports group, has begun the development of two sites of 95 acres, in the Welsh port of Newport. The Atlantic site measures approximately 73 acres, and the West Way Road site 22 acres.

Newport is located 22 kilometres from the Port of Cardiff, and 48 kilometres from the Port of Bristol. Newport handles over 1.1 billion euros of trade per year. The port has multimodal freight facilities and deep-sea access, as well as direct links to both rail and road national networks. Additionally, the ABP sites have on-site power generation, and access to green energy supplies, from wind and solar.

As part of its ongoing port-centric manufacturing and logistics initiative, ABP has been developing several manufacturing facilities. Since the start of the year, they have made almost 600 acres available to the market. There is increasing international interest in these sites, which are suited for port-centric manufacturing and logistics uses.

For instance, a plasterboard manufacturing plant was built in July, which will be operated by the German multinational, Knauf, and is expected to be fully operational by late 2022. The global commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, as well as the American commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE, are both advising ABP on the marketing of their Newport sites.