Leisure Agency, Valuation and Planning

Expert real estate advice and support across the leisure property spectrum

The places and spaces where we spend our free time generate over £200bn a year in direct and indirect contributions.

At Avison Young, we understand the diversity of the leisure industry. Our experienced leisure team provides specialist market advice and assistance on every aspect of leisure property. Our nationwide services focus on the business and property lifecycle, from concept and planning to lettings and sales.

Technology and changing tastes heavily impact the leisure sector, and we appreciate the need for agility, ingenuity and creative thinking to keep up. We’re evolving alongside the industry to give clients the support they need to make their vision a reality.

An image of a group of fairground rides taken across the water from the banks of a lake

View our leisure properties

Expert real estate advice and support across the leisure spectrum

The places and spaces where we spend our free time are part of a sector which generates over £200bn a year in direct and indirect contributions. The leisure industry offers huge opportunities - and rewards - to developers, investors, operators and occupiers.

We’re one of the country’s leading leisure property experts because we work with our clients from beginning to end. We provide an array of real estate services which cover planning applications, due diligence, vendor surveys, project monitoring, dilapidations and acquisition. Our consultants advise on expert witnesses, review trading patterns, and help to reduce business rate liabilities.

The diversity of the sector is something we fully appreciate. Valuing a golf course requires a degree of specialist knowledge which most property consultancies simply don’t have. The same goes for carrying out a feasibility study for a stadium development, or conducting due diligence on the planned purchase of a marina.

Technology and changing tastes are having a major impact on the leisure sector - agility, ingenuity, authenticity and creative thinking are a must for operators. We’re evolving alongside the sector, giving clients the support they need to make their vision a reality.

Our leisure planning team is one of the country’s leading caravan park planning consultants, and is the national planning advisor to the British Holiday and Home Parks Association.

During 2020, we sold, purchased or placed under offer more than £120m of parks, valued assets well over £1bn, and gained planning permission for 575 holiday or residential caravans (equating to c£14m of value-added).

The UK market for marinas is buoyant. Our experts help clients chart a course through the market, using our extensive experience to support their leisure real estate aspirations.

Our experts cover everything from planning to valuation, property management, agency, acquisition advice and building consultancy.

Where necessary, the team provides robust Tourism Need Assessments for holiday lodges and Affordable Housing Viability Appraisals for park home applications.

Our experts advise on numerous health & fitness facilities, including spas, members' clubs, gymnasiums, sports grounds and large-scale sporting venues.

We understand the complexities this subsector brings. Valuing a golf course requires specialist knowledge. The same goes for carrying out a feasibility study for stadium development or conducting due diligence on the planned purchase of a sports centre. Our team of experts cover the complete spectrum.

Our planning and consulting team provide assessments to consider the need, in planning policy terms, to retain golf courses, private sports grounds, public recreation grounds, and tennis and bowls clubs to support planning applications for alternative development.

Our licensed leisure team specialises in the hospitality market and has advised on the purchase and sale of countless pubs, restaurants and hotels and undertaken valuations on all asset classes for various purposes.

Offering a tailored approach, we prepare planning applications to help pubs extend or diversify their offering into restaurants and accommodation, prepare viability reports to justify permission for such applications, and support applications for enabling development or conversion to residential use.

Market leaders for providing advice on some of the most iconic and unusual leisure assets in the country, from Land’s End to John O’Groats and many of the piers that dot the coastline in-between.

Our extensive experience includes theme parks, safari parks, zoos, aquariums, children’s attractions, underground attractions, visitor centres, museums, farm attractions, heritage railways, and science and discovery centres.

We buy, sell, value, and get planning permission for all these types of attractions and any enabling development. We advise on the need and viability of proposals and their economic impact and importance to the local economy.

Urban leisure, exhibition and conferencing cover a vast range of activities which are constantly expanding, contracting, merging and evolving to keep pace with fast-changing tastes, fashion, consumer demand and discretionary spending habits.

Broadly sitting under the leisure umbrella, conferencing encompasses a range of properties from smaller - more intimate - facilities to multi-functional internationally renowned venues within the UK.

With over 30 years of experience in the sector, we are firmly established as one of the ‘go-to’ advisors for conference and exhibition centres, providing specialist valuation, agency, planning and consultancy expertise.