Voice of the Region: Cornwall - Space exploration

Millions of visitors escaped to Cornwall throughout covid in search of big horizons and rolling landscapes and its leisure sector is reaching new heights, but so too are its less traditional high-tech industries at the forefront of marine and space engineering, according to Miller Commercial partner Tom Smith.

Miller Commercial comfortably leads the Radius On Demand Rankings for Cornwall, with 221,859 sq ft of space transacted across 97 deals in 2021. The industrial sector has provided particularly rich pickings, with a huge variety of occupier types taking space.

With 55 space engineering companies already in the county and with one of the longest runways in Europe, Smith believes there are solid foundations in place for the county to become a major hub in aerospace development. The core challenge, however, will be in finding sites ready for development, both for commercial and residential use.