Meet the RDA: The Property Team - building the future

Posted by on 22 May 2023

The RDA Property Team is responsible for managing Rochdale Borough Council’s industrial estate properties as well as undertaking other property-related services. That’s a wide remit, as team manager Maykee Liu explains.

“We’re involved with the entire property portfolio in regard to council owned commercial property,” she says. “That could be the design and preliminary planning around new industrial estates. It could be trying to drum up interest from either local businesses or businesses looking to move to Rochdale during the construction phase. And then once we have tenants settled in, we also take on the management process.”

The team manages council-owned properties in ten industrial estates around Rochdale Borough. The units range from small nursery units to larger buildings, and the team helps firms find the right sized property for their requirements. “It’s always a success story when you’ve helped a business set up in a nursery unit and then help them move into a larger one as their business grows, or take on additional units” says Maykee.

Tenant requirements can range from purely industrial or storage units to mixed use properties with office space and retail frontage.

Promoting sustainability

As well as new builds, a particular focus of the team at the moment is sustainability projects. Many tenants are interested in making their properties greener for ESG purposes (environmental, social and governance) and the team can help with retrofitting buildings or adding solar panels. It also plays a role in identifying new opportunities - a new solar farm, for example - for the sustainable use of existing council land.

“Our job is to really ask what the best use of a site could be,” Maykee explains. “That’s in terms of sustainability and also commercially. We help the council to make the most of underutilised land.”

Day to day work is diverse. “You could be on the phone to a tenant with a broken roller shutter one day, and the next on site with a developer,” she adds. “We also work closely with the council’s finance and legal teams on the terms of leases and rental agreements. But communication with tenants is really important. We try to make ourselves very approachable.”

Supporting business growth in Rochdale

The great thing for tenants is that council owned estates try to strike a balance between generating much needed revenue for the borough and also being as supportive as possible to businesses to help them succeed and grow. This isn’t always the case with private landlords.

“We do everything on a case by case basis,” says Maykee. “Each of the ten estates has different characteristics and its own range of tenants, who all might need different levels of support. We try to cater to their needs as best we can.”

To create consistency, each member of the team acts as the estate manager for a number of industrial estates. That means tenants always know who to come to if they have a problem or just need information on a council service.

The team also provides an advisory service to other council and RDA departments. For example, as the new Atom Valley initiative gathers pace, the team may get involved in helping develop plans around achieving net zero. That might mean putting solar panels on the roofs of buildings, for example, or ensuring there are enough EV charging points.

“It’s always easier if we’re involved from the beginning,” says Maykee. “It’s easier to achieve net zero targets at the planning stage than trying to retrofit buildings later.”

Post-pandemic success

The team’s success is shown in the relevant statistics.

● The industrial estate portfolio is 90% let with the remaining 10% to undergo refurbishment works prior to re-letting.
● Around 85 businesses/individuals are on the waiting list.
● Revenue has increased by 34% since the team was formed in 2019. 

“We are particularly pleased that so many of our tenants not only were able to ride out the pandemic but are now thriving again,” says Maykee. “Some of them needed extra support during lockdowns and we were glad to provide it. That’s paying off now.”

The positive sign for Rochdale more widely is that, with the pandemic now behind us, there is a keen interest in this type of industrial and commercial property in Rochdale. When units become vacant, they are quickly snapped up. “These units are perfect for smaller businesses looking for that first step on the ladder,” Maykee adds. “It’s great for us that there are a lot of those businesses in Rochdale. Our biggest challenge is not having the supply to meet demand!”

Meet the team

Maykee Liu has a masters degree in real estate management, and joined the RDA as a graduate surveyor in 2017. She now manages the team.

Mohammed Nadeem has a HND in property studies and a degree and masters degree in real estate and property management. He joined Rochdale Council in 2011 as a property intern and has been working for the RDA Property team since 2019.

Mohammed Hussain has a degree in property and real estate management and has been working for the RDA for five years.

Ron Chan has recently joined the RDA after moving to the UK from Hong Kong, where he worked as a building surveyor.