Jaynic, the company behind Suffolk Park on the edge of Bury St Edmunds, is to start work on two speculative developments after securing planning consent.

St Edmundsbury Council has granted permission for units totalling 352,402sq ft (32,739sq m) on which Jaynic says it plans to start work “as a show of confidence in the East Anglia distribution market” amid a current lack of supply.

An anchor occupier for the new business park, just off the A14 close to the new Rougham Tower Avenue link road, has already been secured in the form of flavour and fragrance solutions company Treatt which is relocating from Northern Way in Bury.

Simon Wilson, Suffolk Park project director at Jaynic, said: “We have consulted in detail with St Edmundsbury Borough Council’s planning department to agree a scheme which will appeal to forward-thinking warehousing businesses, who we anticipate will also help stimulate growth and create a range of jobs by using new technologies. “Jaynic intends to develop the units speculatively to capture unsatisfied demand from occupiers wanting to lease large distribution space along the A14 corridor. This will enable us to have units ready for occupation in Quarter 3, 2018, comfortably ahead of anything comparable in the East of England Region.”

John Griffiths, leader of St Edmundsbury council, added: “This is the next step towards enabling the successful growth of our local businesses, as well as attracting new enterprises to West Suffolk and the Suffolk Business Park.

“We want to attract the mix and types of businesses who are innovative and contribute to growing skills and expertise across West Suffolk and with it levels of pay. This will create new opportunities for younger people as they leave education, and with it even greater wealth, prosperity and better living conditions for our local residents.”

Jonathan Lloyd of Hazells, local agents on the scheme, said: “We believe that these units will prove very popular with occupiers who want to move quickly. There is approximately 3.5m sq ft (325,158 sq m) of demand in the region, with Bury St Edmunds being in the centre of that region but with a historically low supply.”

Richard Sullivan, Savills’ national head of industrial and logistics, which is retained to seek occupiers on a national basis adds: “While strong levels of take-up will continue in core national markets, for an increasing number of occupiers, there is continued pressures to operate economically and efficiently which will result in a move towards regional locations with good transport links, a plentiful supply of labour and competitive operational costs. Bury St Edmunds fits all these criteria.”