Despite the ongoing impact of current energy prices and other inflationary pressures, there has been strong interest in three nurseries on Humberside, with more than 20ha of glasshouses between them, currently looking for new tenants or owners, according to the agent handling the marketing.
“There’s no doubt the industry as a whole is feeling the impact of higher energy costs,” said Simon Quinton Smith of Berkshire-based Quinton Edwards. “But we have seen a lot of interest which is generally coming from growers and not so much from outside investment companies.”
Two of the nurseries are available to lease from energy investment company P3P, who built and operate a CHP energy centre at both sites. Both have long been used for tomato production, most recently by APS Group.
The largest is the well-known Camblesforth Nursery near Selby, established adjacent to Drax power station in the 1980s and which now extends to 14.4ha of glasshouses, the most recent constructed in the late 1990s, and a packhouse. The nursery’s services have been refurbished and upgraded in the last two years with new controls, heating, wiring, water management and CO2 distribution. The 10 MWe CHP facility was built in 2019.
Although some of the 4ha of glasshouses at nearby Branfield Nursery, Brough, dates to the 1960s, the site benefits from a 2017 investment in CHP and 2.3 million litres of hot water storage.
Offered for sale due to retirement is Cavegates Nurseries, also near Brough, which features 2.5ha of glass on a 4ha site. For many years it specialised in cucumbers before switching to protected strawberries but for the last three years has been let for production of bedding and herbaceous plants. A biomass boiler was installed in 2016.
Quinton Edwards is also currently offering for sale or lease Springtime Nursery adjacent to the A1 in Bedfordshire. The 2.4ha of glasshouses was previously used for hydroponic lettuce and, more lately, container-grown lily production.
Read more news and features from the protected crop industry in our monthly publication The Commercial Greenhouse Grower.