Stormed it! York company wins space award

York based self storage and service station operator, Inner Space Stations, has been named the ‘UK Best Independent Facility of the Year’ at a prestigious award ceremony.

The honour came at an awards night hosted by the Self Storage Association earlier this month.

Inner Space Stations Self Storage opened only a year ago, following an investment of more than £1.3 million by the business.

The company also owns and operates three external container storage sites and the Inner Space Service Station on Hull Road, which was established by Graham Kennedy over 30 years ago.

It has become famous thanks to its Tardis, Dalek and other memorabilia developed around his fascination with space and sci-fi.

The Layerthorpe self storage facility has more than 300 internal storage units over three floors, with sizes ranging from 10 to 200 square feet.

It provides flexible and affordable storage for both businesses and individuals, and also embraces the sci-fi theme, with Daleks, Stormtroopers and an Optimus Prime Transformer guarding the entrance itself.

Each storage unit size is named after a different planet in the solar system.

The wow factor

Rennie Schafer, CEO of the Self Storage Association said: “Inner Space Stations Self Storage has boldly gone where no one has gone before.

“Their new facility has exceptionally high standards, with the aim of creating a customer-friendly, state of the art facility, with a truly unique identity. Delivering a wow factor with the unique use of science fiction props has certainly proved to be a talking point and has laid the foundations for the unique appearance of the facility.”

MD of Inner Space Stations Self Storage Graham Kennedy said:

• As an independent family-run business running service stations for the past 30 years, moving into Self Storage was a new venture for us.

  We toured the UK analysing all the best operators and tried to come up with something completely different using a ‘simply the best’ strategy.

  This award is testament to our great team and to all of the advice and support we have received from other Self Storage operators throughout the UK. I look forward to pushing the standards even higher.

  I expect that Self Storage will help to facilitate huge changes in society and the way we live.
  

Inner Space Stations Self Storage will now go forward to compete for the additional accolade of ‘Best European Independent Facility’ in Paris later this month.

The company mantra is: “It’s life Jim… but not as we know it.”