TAG welcomes Chris Threlfall to the team

If as we suspect, office rental growth slows or goes negative over the coming months, it is likely that historic rent reviews will be triggered to crystallise the growth that occurred in the run up to the pandemic.

Bearing this in mind and the desire we have here at TAG to anticipate the demands of our clients, we are pleased to announce that Chris Threlfall has joined our consultancy team.  

Chris is a Chartered Surveyor with specialist expertise in Lease Renewals, Rent Reviews and Section 18 Valuations (dilapidations).

He has worked for a variety of major property consultancies during his career in both Manchester and London. In 2008 he established his own independent consultancy through which he undertakes a range of professional appointments including expert witness representation.

Chris is married with two daughters and is a regular playing member of Greenmount Golf Club, Bolton. He is a qualified BSAC “Ocean Diver” and due to family interests in France, is normally a frequent visitor to Normandy and Languedoc.

If you would like advice on your rent review or lease renewal please do not hesitate to call Chris on 0161 457 1422 or email him at ct@tenantag.co.uk.

The History of the Office.

So when and where was the first office building developed and what if anything, can we learn from it and the examples that followed?

In this three-part series, I am going to explain the history of the office so we can better understand its role in our past, present and future.

Part 1 – Where did it all start?

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (Sept 2020), an office is ‘a room or a part of a building where people work usually sitting at desks.’ One could therefore argue that offices have existed since humans began writing because doing so effectively has involved sitting at a table or as we might refer to it, a desk.

This is an example of a ‘Cuneiform’ which was a system of writing developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3,500-3,000 BC.

A blunt reed or stylus was used to create wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets.

It follows that an office of some description probably existed in Mesopotamia as early as 3,500 BC. That is when, as far as we know, one of the first “writing” systems was developed.

However, it is unlikely that offices in the ancient world were constructed as a purpose-built building. Instead, most would probably have comprised a room within a house or a palace. Some would have been contained within a military garrison or castle. Others would have been located within a cathedral or monastery.

To my knowledge, no one has proved the existence of a purpose-built office building in any of the ancient cities of Egypt, Greece or China. Not even ancient Rome can lay claim to the invention of the office building. So where can?

The answer is closer than you might think namely, London. Or to be more precise, Leadenhall Street in the City of London.

Designed by Richard Rogers and completed in 1986, the Lloyds Building in The City of London is Grade I Listed and a leading example of ‘Bowellism’ architecture. It is also built on the site of what many believe was the world’s first commercial office building

The date was 1729 and the building in question was the re-built East India House.

The East India Company was a trading company that was established in London in 1600. At that time, like many businesses it was managed from rooms within a merchant’s home. It was common for the proprietor of a trading company to live above the shop, as it were. He would employ clerks who also lived on-site. The employees were often treated like domestic servants. This meant that there was no need to commute. However, the flipside was that they felt captive. Sound familiar at all?

East India House was the London headquarters of the East India Company

The first incarnation of East India House was an Elizabethan mansion, previously known as Craven House, which the Company first occupied in 1648. This was completely rebuilt in 1726–29; and further remodelled and extended in 1796–1800. It is the 1729 version which is regarded by many architectural historians as the first purpose built commercial office building. It was demolished in 1861 and today, the site is occupied by the Lloyd's building, headquarters of Lloyd's of London.

The East India Company was governing much of India in the 18th century. This created a huge administrative task reflected in the design and management of its new headquarters which was located thousands of miles away in London. The enterprise generated enormous quantities of paperwork which in turn, required hundreds of clerks to process the information, often at great speed. The reason being that mail from India took anything from five to eight months to arrive. When the ship docked, it was imperative to process the information as quickly as possible so considered instructions could be sent back without undue delay. This meant that the administrative processes and command-and-control systems had to be well organised. However, many of the day-to-day management challenges sound all too familiar, even two hundred years later!

Here is an extract from the writings of an East India employee, Charles Lamb (1775-1834) who worked at East India House from 1792 to his retirement:

"On Friday I was at office from 10 in the morning (two hours dinner except) to 11 at night - last night till 9." There was much about Lamb's working life that sounds incredibly familiar. Like the way his employers granted perks one minute, only to take them away again as soon as times got hard. In 1817 for example, the holiday allowance of £10 a year was cut for new members of staff, Saturday became a full working day and the equivalent of the Christmas office party, the "yearly turtle feast", was scrapped.

It is interesting to note that back in the 17th and 18th Century most transactional business in the insurance, banking and shipping sectors was carried out in a coffee house. Maybe agile working is not that old a concept after all!

So there you have it. The first modern commercial office building was built in London three hundred years ago.

To discover how the office building evolved and what the future of the office might look like, look out for future posts.

If you would like advice on your future office requirements either in the North West or elsewhere in the UK, please call Martyn Markland on 0161 457 1422 or email him at mm@tenantag.co.uk .

Business Rates – as an office tenant, can I claim rates relief as a result of Covid-19?

The pandemic has prompted many businesses to review their fixed costs including Business Rates.

Unfortunately, very few office tenants can claim relief from Business Rates due to Covid-19.

There are two exceptions. Firstly, if you can prove that the circumstances affecting your business amount to a 'Material Change in Circumstances' as defined under Schedule 6 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, you may be able to claim relief. Whilst this is a difficult hurdle to cross, it is theoretically possible.

The second exception is if your business qualifies for temporary Business Rates relief. This has so far been limited to retail, leisure and hospitality businesses together with children’s nurseries in England, for the current tax year. So once again, this may not apply to you if you are an office tenant.

If these exceptions do not apply to your business, all is not lost. You still have the option of having someone review your Rates Bill to see if it is accurate. If it is not or there are other extenuating circumstances (e.g. disturbance from a nearby construction site) that might provide grounds for an appeal, then it might still be possible to reduce your rates liability. In some cases, and with the correct supporting evidence, it is possible to go back several years and then successfully claim a rebate.

If you would like advice on your business rates and discover what your options might be, please contact Paul Giness on 0161 457 1422 or email him at pg@tenantag.co.uk.

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What is the Future of the Office?

The Human Factor

In 1994, Bill Gates’ predicted that the new ‘Information Highway’ (i.e. the internet) would mean that “commuting to an office becomes pointless”.

However, something Gates had not accounted for was the extent to which we as human beings thrive on face to face contact.

Covid-19 has undoubtedly helped Microsoft Teams and Zoom to prove their technological worth. But the pandemic has also underlined just how precious ‘in-person’ social interaction is in a work setting.

The data certainly supports this view. A recent survey of 2,000 office workers by business equipment firm Raja revealed that social interaction was what they missed most about their workplace.

This ‘human factor’ is therefore crucial to understanding the future of the office. Whilst change is almost certainly on its way, it seems clear that the office is far from dead.

The Covid Legacy

The last few months have demonstrated that home working is viable for most of us for at least one or two days a week, at any rate. Crucially though, employers have realised that in the main, they can trust their employees to do what is expected of them, even when they are out of sight for months at a time.

When life eventually gets back to normality, what will the long-term effects of Covid 19 be on the office?

Here are our thoughts on some of the changes you can expect to see:

·       More Autonomy

Expectations have changed. Employees now expect to be able to work from home as and when they choose. As a result, employers will be expected to offer greater flexibility within employment contracts to attract and retain talent. Some may insist that their staff attend the office a minimum number of days a week whilst others may adopt a laissez faire approach, allowing staff to decide for themselves.

·       More Fun

The office now faces competition from the home as well as ‘Third Places’ (e.g.’s coffee shops, collaboration hubs). As a result, offices are likely to become more ‘experiential’ in nature We are also likely to see far more generous and attractive break out spaces created to facilitate social interaction amongst staff. They will also probably need to inject a bit of fun if staff are going to invest in a daily commute.

·       More Choice

Something that many offices currently lack is a choice of work settings to suit difference modes of learning and collaboration. This will change as the office evolves into what is termed an ‘activity-based working environment’.

·       More Focus

The design and specification of the office of the future will have to match that of the best home office. This might mean for example, that we will see more acoustically protected study spaces created to allow staff to carry out their focused work away from the distractions of the open plan areas. Similarly, we are also likely to see a greater number of ‘Zoom Rooms’ provided for those all-important virtual meetings.

·       More Hub (and less Smoke)?

In some organisations, staff will be provided with access to collaboration hubs close to where they live. This will allow them to work in a more agile way that removes the necessity to commute regularly into the central HQ whilst still providing them with a professional work environment where they can collaborate and socialise with others. A return to the ‘hub and spoke’ office infrastructure that was favoured by the I-T and financial services sectors back in the 1980’s and 1990’s would provide a much needed boost for out-of-town business parks. However, concerns over sustainability, public transport and local amenities might mean these hubs gravitate instead to larger satellite towns.

·       More Availability

The overall demand for conventional leased office space in major city centres is likely to decline as organisations allow greater numbers of staff to work from home and ‘Third Places’. Even if staff spend on average just one day a week working from home, it might be possible for companies to reduce their office space by 20%. The availability of office space through landlords and existing tenants is therefore likely to increase resulting in relative over-supply in several office markets. This could result in increased competition and lower rents.

·       More Obsolescence

Older office buildings with limited lift provision and poor-quality air handling/air conditioning systems will struggle to secure new tenants and will eventually have to be converted to alternative uses or redeveloped altogether.

If you are struggling to assess what your future office requirements will be post-Covid or you need advice on re-negotiating or exiting your current office lease, please contact a member of the TAG team by calling 0161 817 5007 or emailing myfutureoffice@tenantag.co.uk