London at risk of running out of affordable offices, agents warn
LONDON could run out of more affordable, secondary office space, property experts warned yesterday, as demand from companies taking up space in the capital continued to gather pace in October.
Property advisory firm DTZ said the availability of second hand office space – relied on by start-up and small businesses – was at a 13-year low of 5.1m square feet, after falling 74 per cent in a decade.
“Most people focus on prime space but availability of grade B [space] is also important to London’s increasingly diverse economy,” DTZ’s Sophy Moffat, said.
“Tech, creative, media and start-ups make up a large share of Central London’s industries, but the cheaper, and typically older, office buildings these kinds of firms often flock to…seem in short supply.”
The firm said companies snapped up 15 per cent more space in the year to October compared with the same time last year. Take-up in the City rose 26 per cent to 4.75m sq ft.