More office occupiers leaving the West End
Office occupiers in Central London are continuing to migrate eastwards, says The Times, citing research from Cushman & Wakefield showing that take-up of West End office space fell 25% in 2012 to 2.5m sq ft. This was despite the booming demand for offices from companies in the TMT sector.
The amount of office space in Central London being sought actively by companies has risen 16% since January 2012, to 8.7m sq ft, with the TMT sector accounting for 35% of total demand, the paper notes.
In total, 7.3m sq ft of Central London office space was let in 2012, according to C&W, compared with 7.8m sq ft in 2011. Take-up of offices in the City and Docklands rose 10% in 2012 to 4.8m sq ft thanks to strong demand from occupiers in the insurance sector – for which a City location is key – as well as from media and technology companies.
The Times quotes Guy Taylor, head of Cushman & Wakefield’s West End office, as saying that some occupiers are moving out of the West End not only because of the high rents in areas such as Soho and Covent Garden but because new, peripheral locations including Shoreditch, Clerkenwell and King’s Cross “attract like-minded sectors and because a high proportion of the staff live there, too”.
