January 3, 2013
Thirteen building services contractors have been awarded a contract to retrofit around 400 London public sector buildings to make them more energy efficient. The work is being carried out as part of London Mayor Boris Johnson’s RE:FIT initiative. The new programme of work is expected to last four years and will see contractors guarantee a set level of savings based on the energy conservation measures implemented. More →
January 2, 2013
Hello to all this
…East London that is. According to property consultants Cushman & Wakefield we are seeing a net migration of companies away from their West End heartland towards the supposedly more creative and tech-focussed districts of Clerkenwell, Shoreditch and King’s Cross. The firm reports that the take-up of West End office space fell by around a quarter to 2.5m sq ft in 2012.
January 1, 2013
The New Year starts with news from Chicago based property broker Jones Lang LaSalle that investors spent some £ 30 billion on income generating property in the U.K. during 2012, about 9 percent less than in 2011. However there was a marked disparity between the London market and the rest of the UK. London deals totaled £18 billion in 2012, the highest figure for four years, while purchases outside the capital reached 12 billion pounds, the lowest amount over the same period. More →
December 31, 2012
A new report from consultants Cushman and Wakefield has predicted that the global commercial real estate market will stabilise over the next twelve months and, in some areas of the world, may enjoy a degree of growth. While acknowledging wide regional variations, the report claims that there are some clear global themes that can be identified, not least in the ongoing growth of markets in Asia. Significant growth is not expected in the majority of regions until 2014 and beyond.
December 31, 2012
Britain’s local authorities have been told by the Government to find more ways to share back office functions and buy goods and services together to gain discounts and reduce costs. In a document, 50 ways to save: examples of sensible savings in local government, published by the Department for Communities and Local Government in December, councils were given a number of ideas about how they could reduce their annual spend. The report can be seen here.
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December 31, 2012
Many firms that have worked with the public sector will have their own particular stories about the failings of its procurement processes. The Government’s promise to look into this has now led to it publishing a report from the Cabinet Office released just before Christmas (great timing as ever). You can see the report looking at the failings of public procurement as reported by the supply side here. Or -straight from the horse’s mouth – an interview with Sally Collier, Government Deputy Chief Procurement Officer here.
December 30, 2012
The latest technology that will revolutionise the way we work is now upon us. It is called unified communications and it is a principle that strikes at the very heart of this new world of fragmented yet interconnected work. It is a comparatively straightforward idea intended to solve a complex challenge. As organisations have started to adapt to an economy that is always-on, global and without boundaries of time and space, they have looked for ways to integrate technology to deliver a better working experience for employees, reduce costs both for themselves and their clients and improve their competitiveness. The Briefing can be downloaded here.
November 27, 2012
Investors have almost doubled the value of commercial property transactions in Yorkshire, according to property consultants Lambert Smith Hampton.However, the level of deals is still slightly below the level at the same time last year. LSH says the total value of Yorkshire investment deals in the third quarter of 2012 rose to £303 million from £172 million in the previous quarter, but was below the £306.5 million total for the third quarter of 2011.
November 26, 2012
It’s essential to design flexibility into an office
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Furniture
The design of offices and the furniture that fills them matters because of what it tells us about how we work, how organisations function and even what is happening in the economy. If you want to know what’s going on, take a look at the places we work and the things with which we surround ourselves and how they change over time.
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