Students at a Welsh university city are helping fuel the growth of one of the UK’s biggest containerised self-storage companies.
The demand for storage space, especially outside term time, is one of the reasons Denbigh-based Lock Stock Self-Storage have just opened their third storage park in Bangor.
Enquiries from the university’s large student population has been one of the factors behind the growing company’s decision to open the new facility on Euston Road, close to the city’s railway station.
The site was derelict and overgrown with weeds and brambles just a month ago but is now shiny and black thanks to some imaginative recycling.
Lock Stock foreman/supervisor Richard Birch said: “We have cleared it all and installed security fencing and are laying almost 400 tons of road finings.
“They are old road tarmac dug up when re-surfacing work is being done and they make an ideal surface for us because they dry out rock hard and smooth – you can even see the yellow of double-yellow lines in some places.”
The new site will hold 110 storage units, painted in Lock Stock’s distinctive dark green livery, a mix of 10- and 20-footers and it takes the number of units at their three Bangor sites up to over 250.
They are being trucked onto the new one-acre site by lorry and Lock Stock use computer-aided design to ensure the layout permits easy, round the clock access to all the units.
Area Site Manager Lee Hanson said: “We are responding to demand and much of that demand is from students as well as from local businesses, tradespeople and from people moving house.
“We have installed 10 and 20-foot units here because they fit the profile of the site and better cater to the student population than the 40-footers.
“There will be high security fencing and the manual gates will soon be replaced by new electric gates with coded 24/7 access.
“It’s not just the units that are green either. We use recycled surfacing and we are also trialling solar-powered lighting as part of our own drive to be as renewable as possible and if it works well then we plan to roll it out across all our sites.”
“Our insulated storage units are recycled too after making 12,000-mile sea journey from China.
“The sites are conveniently located in the heart of the local community, we offer flexible deals so tenants only pay for the days they use the unit, there is no minimum term and we have recently introduced a Student Discount.”
Lock Stock, founded in Denbigh in 1999, is the UK’s largest containerised storage company with almost 4,500 units providing over four million cubic feet of space at storage parks across North and Mid Wales and the border counties.
Their existing sites stretch from Holyhead and along the North Wales coast at Porthmadog, Caernarfon, Bangor, Llandudno, Abergele and Rhyl, on the Dee at Flint, Saltney and Deeside and inland at Denbigh, Mold, Buckley, Wrexham and Newtown in Powys, and at Oswestry and Shrewsbury in Shropshire.
The company estimate that 60 per cent of their containers are rented by people moving house or keeping treasured possessions but up to 40 per cent, almost 2,000 of their containers are used by small businesses for storing materials.
Lee Hanson added: “Businesses, especially small businesses use our sites because they have storage needs and with three different sizes of units they’re ideal whether people are looking to grow or to downsize.
“We respond to demand and where it is coming from and if it is from an area where we need more capacity then we look at opening somewhere new or extending our existing premises.”
Lock Stock also specialise in the off-site hire of containers, delivered to your location by their specialist lorry and hired on a month by month basis. The sizes range from 10-feet long up through 20-footers to 40-foot units, all eight feet high and eight feet wide, from 640 to 2,560 in cubic feet in volume.
