AJM Pet Products, which suffered a major fire at its warehouse in Yate, has moved to new premises at Aztec West Business Park.
The company has moved into 1640 Aztec West just over a month after the blaze, in a deal brokered by Colliers International. The fire, which was accidental, destroyed its 10,000 sq ft warehouse at Beeches Industrial Estate in Yate.
Andrew Pierce, managing director of AJM Pet Products, which is UK agent for three major European manufacturers, said: “We were able to move into new premises in incredibly quick time thanks to Colliers International. They contacted us and asked if they could help when they heard about the fire, at a time when so much was happening we could barely think.
“Their guidance has been invaluable in enabling us to now be providing a business as usual service for our customers, as it soon became clear that finding suitable new premises would be a bigger challenge than dealing with the fire itself.
“Five years ago there would have been a choice of industrial property in Yate. Now there is nothing, so finding us a new warehouse that we could move into quickly was a huge achievement.”
AJM Pet Products has taken a three-year sub-lease on 1640 Aztec West, which is a recently refurbished 12,096 sq ft end of terrace unit. Colliers International represented Spandex in the deal.
Tim Davies, head of the Industrial & Logistics team at Colliers International in Bristol, said: “When the news about the fire broke the team got in touch with AJM Pet Products to see if they needed any help in finding new premises, as there is a chronic shortage of industrial stock in the Bristol area.
“We then pulled out the stops to make sure we got the deal through as quickly as possible, and it is a pleasure to see that it is very much business as usual for this busy local company.”
Andrew Pierce added that AJM Pet Products managed continued to operate in the immediate aftermath of the fire thanks to the support of nearby companies in Yate.
“The way in which everyone rallied round has been amazing and we are very grateful,” he said.
We were initially provided with temporary storage space near our Yate warehouse by a local company, and then were able to utilise warehouse space at third party logistics company David Hathaway in Yate.
“This enabled us to continue to deal with orders and deliveries as best we could, but it was getting to the point when big deliveries were coming through and it would have been very challenging if Colliers had not managed to get the deal for the new warehouse through so quickly.”
