Big Yellow buys new site in Hove

Big Yellow said the new store, which is subject to planning, will complement its existing store close to the centre in east Brighton.

"This is a site we are particularly pleased with as the company's management have been tracking it for nearly 20 years in a town where land availability is very limited," it said.

The latest acquisition takes the pipeline to around 620,000 sq ft across 10 projects, with a total development cost of £173m, of which £84m has been spent to date, including site acquisition costs.

Chief executive officer James Gibson said: "Securing sites and procuring planning permissions remains challenging and complex, and there will be setbacks. Notwithstanding this, we are confident of making progress and we have therefore decided to update the market more regularly with newsworthy events."

Big Yellow said its 55,000 sq ft store in Central Guildford opened this week, while the extension to its store in Wandsworth is due to open in May, and it has begun construction on its central Manchester store.

It also plans to start fitting its Wapping store in the spring, with an initial footprint of 20,000 sq ft net lettable area, to open in the early autumn.

At 0950 GMT, the shares were down 0.6% to 848p.