It won’t be a surprise to many of you that government has spare desk space available across its doubtless gargantuan portfolio of property.
What may be more surprising is that citizens can potentially use it for free. I spotted this opportunity on the gov.uk website under the Space for Growth banner. Check out that link for full deets.
Basically, if you can satisfy some basic security criteria, you can book and use desk space and meeting rooms (and maybe even storage and lab space) that is currently not used by the government. Some of the spaces might be going under the hammer soon or for more permanent premises, it’s a case that the government isn’t using the entirety of a space.
Some charges for services and the like might be levied, needess to say. But it’s an interesting idea. Alas, the variety and location of space isn’t that great or varied but all in all it’s no bad thing.
Check out this link for the various locations currently available.
5 Responses
Good Idea, although we know of Government / LA buildings that have laid empty for years & these are not on the lists.
We have approached our LA about a large commercial office/admin 4 floor complex [whom still have 10 years left on the 25 year lease & has been empty for the last 5 years] with the view to taking over 50% of the ground floor & they can then offer the other 3 floors as office space & there not interested, as their other brand new £100m developments only have a total occupancy of 41%.
were all paying taxes for this ,its not free, there should be no space available in government premises that is not efficiently used, we also worry at the cost of administration for this, someone clever has manufactured a job out of this
The Government has an enormous Estate. With all the changes that are going on all the time there must be at any one time a significant amount of space that is not being used. Obviously there may be plans for some of it to be used in the future so it could be used for short term purposes. The thing that gets me when I looked was just how little is on the list. I just do not believe it. I would guess that there is a great deal more than this that could be made available.
So if you know of Governmental space local to you that is currently not being used which could be of use to you get onto your local M.P.(give them something useful to do for a change).
Make certain that you have full details of the scheme and of the property that could be of use to you and raise it. After all if it could be of use to you perhaps other small businesses locally could also be helped by it.(I take it that the property that you have in mind is much larger than you actually need so you could occupy a part of it and others other bits).
Local Authority spare space is even easier to highlight. Almost every part of the Country has a Local Weekly Newspaper covering it. Get in contact with the Reporters and you will soon find that they are very happy to take up local issues. After all every week they have to fill up a Newspaper with Local Stories and that is not always that easy. So if there is an Office Block owned or Leased by the Local Authority that is lying there doing nothing invite the Reporter along to have a look at it. Soon he/she will be seeing dozens possibly hundreds of column inches and photographs, even front covers. And if they are really lucky a story that could be taken up by the Nationals.
At the end of the day you could see the LA selling off or sub letting the Office Block and possibly even resignations of the Councillors/Officials who have sat on the property so long and cost the Local Council Tax-payers so much. In fact you could really have a great deal of fun with it. Remember that I am speaking as somebody interested in Local Politics and it is always fun to get a Political Opponent to resign especially if they have been a pain in the back(its a family site so I will restrain myself) in the past to me and my colleagues.
Fantastic idea!
I’ve just found prime office space available in Leeds city centre 2 mins walk from the train station for FREE.
If I needed the space I would be snapping this up.