Company sets great store on secure space

A FURTHER stage in the gargantuan redevelopment of the Chambers Business Centre at Hollinwood is under way.

A whole floor at the former Vale cotton mill in Chamber Road is being converted to storage units with more than half of the space — totalling 35,000 sq ft — nearing completion.

Costing £500,000 this conversion will realise more than 100 self-contained self-storage units with around 70 available from the end of June.

The site, which offers units with a height of 12ft 6in, CCTV security and independent security keypads, has been accredited by the Self-Storage Association of Great Britain.

With access from the top end of the 41/2-acre site, away from the office accommodation entrance, a ramp has created to ease access to the second-storey units.

Owners Mohammed Yousaf and his son Adnan are convinced there is a market for self-storage with space already taken by many of the 30 tenants within the mill.

Empty since January, 2006, when the last occupiers, wallpaper manufacturers Stanley Holmes Ltd, entered into administration, the mill, at the junction of Chamber Road and Chapel Road, was purchased from the receivers by CR Ltd, a Burnley-based property developer.

Mr Yousaf is the managing director and has divested many of his properties interests in Lancashire to fund the multi-million pound works.

Chambers is already home to more than 80 employees since Mr Yousaf and his son, a chartered building surveyor, began their project in August, 2008.

The self-storage element of the project will be in direct competition with several businesses in Oldham but Mr Yousaf and his team are convinced that the scale, standard and availability of his units will prove a compelling attraction.

“We have researched the market and I believe the space we have created is of the right size, and has the privacy people require, to be a success,” he told Chronicle Business.