Acting for US private equity fund, Blackstone Group, we have sold a 20.22 acre site in Hemel Hempstead for £6.425m.

The site has been sold to J Murphy and Sons for heavy plant storage.

The site is the former Buncefield Oil Terminal, which was acquired by Blackstone and Astral Developments in 2002. After three years of planning and development it briefly became home to “Mammoth”, one of the largest speculatively built warehouses in the South East.

Former Buncefield Oil Terminal

In December 2005 the Mammoth building was destroyed by the Buncefield Oil Depot explosion. The Blackstone Group decided not to rebuild the building following a Health and Safety Executive review, concluding that nothing can be built within 1,300 sq ft of the oil depot.

Rare opportunity to buy

The site occupies a prominent position less than one mile from junction 8 of the M1, and five miles from the M1/M25 interchange.

We were instructed to let or sell the 20.22 acre site as a whole or in parts. Claire Madden, Director in our Hertfordshire team, commented: “This site offered the new owners a rare opportunity to purchase a well-situated piece of land at a very competitive price.”