Sir Peter Soulsby believes the £150 million office development plans, part of Leicester’s regeneration project going back 10 years, are no longer good idea.

The office project has not yet managed to get started properly, and Sir Peter now feels focusing on other parts of the city for prime office space would be a better idea.

To this end he is urging local firms to assist the city council over the coming five months in creating a list of good areas for office development in the city, which is set to be named the Leicester City Office Development Opportunities Study.

Sir Peter said: "It’s not always helpful for councils to be defining the areas where investment should be encouraged.

"It’s important that we identify areas with development potential. But it’s right that we roll out other areas where investors could bring value and investment.

"I’m determined that this is something that will lead to action rather than gather dust on the shelf.

"The study is beginning now and the intention is for this to be a short piece of work with a report back to us in the autumn."

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According to research from the Leeds Agents’ Forum, in the opening three months of 2012, 155,847 sq ft of office interior space was occupied.

This compares favourably with the corresponding period of 2011, when the total office space take-up stood at just 37,000 sq ft.

The average size of a deal in the city went up at the start of 2012, with eight deals involving office space of more than 5,000 sq ft in scale.

Commenting on the new figures, Richard Thornton, office agency director for the Jones Lang LaSalle Leeds office, said: "Following on from the positive end to 2011, which saw a 30.5% year-on-year increase, we have seen a dramatic uptake in city centre take-up in the first three months of 2012."

He added that large-size deals dominated the market between January and March of this year.

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Those on the look-out for office interiors in the North West might be able to purchase space in landmark buildings like Athenaeum House, Castle Buildings and the Connexions office in Broad Street.

It is thought that as much as a quarter of the council’s buildings could be sold as part of plans to save £300,000 on accommodation expenses.

However, John Smith, the council’s deputy leader and executive member for finance, said the organisation’s final decision will take issues like the condition of buildings into consideration.

He stated: "We are currently experiencing unprecedented reductions in revenue budgets which have underlined the need to make the best use of the resources available to the council.

"The asset management plan makes the case that the council can no longer manage its property in the same way that it has done in the past."

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The proposals, which would see 920,000 sq ft of office space created, are set to be reviewed by the London Borough of Lambeth.

It is also hoped that an all-encompassing international business hub could be created in the area by Sir David Chipperfield, the award-winning architect.

Among the ideas put forward, it is thought a 107,000 sq ft glass-fronted gallery could be created near Waterloo International, called Victory Arch Square.

And two business-focussed centres could be developed in place of the existing Elizabeth House site on York Road. Under the plans, the North centre would contain 29 storeys, while the South site would offer 10 storeys of office space.

Retail outlets would also be incorporated into the bottom floor of the South building.

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The work at the Old Duchy Palace in Lostwithiel has received approval for ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) Convergence investment.

This will allow the creation of 130 square metres of office space and the restoration and improvement of the structure, with the estimated seven jobs being created once work is finished and tenants are preparing to move in.

It is likely new tenants will be already weighing up options for office interior design to ensure their new base has the right look.

The plans for the grade one-listed palace, managed by the Prince’s Regeneration Trust and its subsidiary the United Kingdom Historic Building Preservation Trust, are costed at £600,000.

The offices at the site, which sits on the corner of Fore Street and Quay Street, will be ideal for anything connected with history, said Lostwithiel business group vice-chairman Mike Dobbie.

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Liverpool Waters aims to transform 60 hectares of historic dockland into a mixed use waterfront quarter that will include hundreds of thousands of square feet of Grade A office space.

The project will focus on sustainable development and is to take the site’s cultural heritage into account. Once finished, it is expected to contribute significantly to Liverpool’s growth and development.

The project is also aimed at strengthening connections between Northshore and the city centre and will attract businesses from around the world. It is hoped that it will also increase visitor numbers.

Since Liverpool Waters, the largest project ever to be considered for planning approval in Liverpool, is of regional and national significance, the Government will have to give its final approval to the project or call for a public inquiry before it can go ahead.

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A master plan for Airport City Manchester has been unveiled detailing how 5 million sq ft of office space on the 150 acre site near the airport can be turned into a new central business district.

The development could take up to 15 years to realise and was recently launched by Manchester Airports Group at real estate show, MIPIM.

The group’s chief executive Charlie Cornish said: "Airport City is a once in a lifetime opportunity... creating an international business destination linked to the global connectivity of the North’s major international airport and driven by the region’s global offer in terms of academic, scientific and technological credentials, supported by its communications and transport infrastructure."

The aim is to develop the office space for manufacturing, retail, leisure, warehousing and logistics use to create the new business park, which will also be close to the new Metrolink line.

Manchester Airports Group said - along with the varied office space - bars, eateries and coffee shops will create ’a conventional city centre’ with ’world-class facilities’ by the airport.

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Ken Knott and Ian Simpson want to build the new offices near the £80 million First Street development to cater to smaller cultural and creative business.

A cornerstone of the proposed project is to regenerate the Oxford Road train station entrance, which is being discussed with Manchester City Council and Network Rail.

Developers want to remove eight rail arches on Whitworth Street West and put offices for small businesses in the remaining arches.

A thoroughfare would be made linking the station to the start of First Street by utilising space surrounding the Hotspur Press in Cambridge Street.

The proposed redevelopment aims to complement the work already being undertaken on First Street and the creation of Manchester’s ’knowledge corridor’.

The plans were unveiled during a talk on the £80 million development on First Street at the MIPIM property convention held in Cannes.

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The 14-storey development will incorporate 305,000 sq ft of office space and 9,000 sq ft of retail accommodation. Installing the dark blue grey riven stone slate will take several months.

Industry experts reckon the material is the "Rolls Royce" of slate as it is the toughest natural slate known, with the longest life cycle of slates. It comes from Welsh//Slate’s Cwt-y-Bugail quarry in North Wales.

Welsh slate is used mainly for Grade I and II listed buildings and high end commercial and self build projects around the world.

The material is non-porous so it is very resistant to weathering and damage from chemicals, said Welsh//Slate’s architectural sales manager Andy Carson. It is protected from frost damage by low water absorption levels, he added.

"We look forward to seeing our product forming an important piece of Birmingham’s skyline for many years to come," said Mr Carson.

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The City has seen 4m sq ft of office space taken up over the past year, compared to 3.5m sq ft in 2010, according to a study by property consultants EA Shaw.

Some of the most popular areas to buy property for businesses were Soho, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, Holborn and the South Bank.

Covent Garden had the biggest increase in popularity with around 55% more business purchasing property, which equalled 1.241m sq ft.

Technology companies bought up the most space in the City when compared to 2010 as the sector experienced a booming market and expanded to 1.3m sq ft in the last year.

The increased demand for central London locations was at the highest rate since the start of the economic downturn.

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Workstation prices rose on average in both areas as larger companies moved in, taking space and forcing price increases.

The survey by search service officebroker.com also found businesses were demanding larger space and suggested that firms had raised average requirements in offices by just under two workstations on 2010.

The service reported a 28% rise per workstation in Edinburgh to £315, making the Scottish capital the most expensive spot in a city centre for serviced office space outside central London. And in Glasgow, a 21% price rise in office space year-on-year came to a £206 average per workstation.

Activity in these areas in the two major cities reflects the changing needs of companies during uncertain times, said Chris Meredith, UK head of sales at officebroker.com.

Flexibility is a chief concern for all sizes of company given the increasing amount of larger companies in the market, said Mr Meredith.

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Premises with a grade A office fit-out are sorely lacking in the Hampshire city, the report by Jones Lang LaSalle shows.

Michael Green, who runs the company’s Southampton base, said vacancy rates for offices in the city are high but premium space is in short supply, pointing out that "the pipeline of new schemes has dried up".

He went on: "This will have consequences, not least on the city’s ability to attract or retain footloose inward investors from the financial services and professional sectors."

Mr Green said a "serious supply shortage" of grade A office space will become more apparent in 2013-14 "before new schemes are capable of attracting funding and are then built out".

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The scheme, for Scottish Enterprise, is aiming to being in more creative industries to the former railway goods yard site.

The plan is hoped to be a pilot scheme for similar office redevelopment, and if successful, nine other such blocks could follow. The design seeks to provide "low-cost, energy-efficient and flexible work pod spaces for young, start-up companies in the creative industries".

Its added: "Most digital media/creative users will use office-type buildings. It is suggested that the 2004 masterplan concept of relatively large, single floor-user buildings is no longer appropriate. The completed market analysis has largely determined future building requirements for small, flexible work units."

Working in conjunction with Abertay University, which has strong links to Dundee’s digital media and video game sectors, planners found that most business start-ups would require space of only up to 1,000 square feet.

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It is thought that this could pose a significant threat to commercial property market recovery if firms see this as an opportunity to downsize.

JLL revealed that over the next five years there will be 6.2m sq ft of expiries and breaks in London, while there will be another 8m sq ft in other big cities.

Although the company has warned the importance of these lease events "cannot be overstated" there is a "greater propensity to extend and restructure" leases among firms.

But, with the City workforce expected to remain flat, developers of new office buildings in London have been targeting companies with lease events as potential tenants.

Some of the businesses expected to look for London-based office space this year include LinkedIn, Saatchi & Saatchi and Prudential Regulatory Authority.

The office space required for those expansions is expected to be just 775,000 sq ft, which JLL has warned would see the take-up of office space fall below the 10-year average.

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Real estate adviser DTZ’s report categorised prime office space as grade A , with good-quality secondary office space rated as grade B and poor-quality secondary office space given a grade C rating.

Some 85% of office space in the minor UK markets is of a grade C quality, whereas only 54% of office space in central London was rated in this category. This is because land in central London attracts a higher price than anywhere else in the country and therefore offices need to be of a higher quality to reflect the higher premium.

In most markets, grade C office space exceeds the total amount of grade A and B office space. In total, grade A office space accounts for 9% of the UK market, while 22% of the UK’s offices are of grade B quality. Excluding the main office markets, garde A and B offices account for just 4% and 11% respectively.

Hans Vrensen, DTZ’s global head of research, said: "This analysis is an initial step towards sizing the non-prime market. This is important given that non-prime property is collateral for much of the circa £300 billion real estate debt in the UK."

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Figures from CBRE reveal that more Aberdeen office interiors were taken up in the three-month period than in the previous two years.

However, take-up of office space in the city was lower than the first two quarters of 2011.

New office space now makes up 17% of the market, with most of the city’s 761,631 sq ft of space classed as second hand.

In comparison to the Aberdeen statistics, CBRE said that the take up of office interiors in Glasgow reached 91,670 sq ft in the third quarter, while in Edinburgh it peaked at 103,717 sq ft.

The Scottish capital saw a 52% drop in the uptake of office space between the second and third quarters of the year.

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But the area is oversupplied with secondary and tertiary stock, according to research from national commercial property firm Lambert Smith Hampton. The report reveals that rental levels for office space are likely to remain static for the next 12 months, at least, in the West Midlands.

It said: "Availability levels have remained high in the Midlands, although prime office space continues to be limited and most availability is of lower grade stock."

The findings showed there is only 300,000 sq ft of prime space available in Birmingham as the region faces a shortage of grade A office space as demand is far outstripping current supply and the shortfall is being made up by secondary and tertiary stock. The report also discovered that the market is Nottingham is over-supplied with such space.

Although there are no strict rules on what makes office space prime, secondary or tertiary, prime office space is normally found in the heart of a city and the office design is of a very high standard with top-quality materials used.

It is predicted that the only growth in the office space rental market during 2012 will be in Central London and certain other parts of the South.

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The Crane Survey’s half-yearly report found that the number of commercial building projects in the West End is on the up, and higher than at any point during the last two years.

London now has around 2.3 million sq ft office floorspace earmarked by developers, with some of it considered to be of the highest standard.

Westminster City Council said it is a great boon for central London that it is bucking the national trend and attracting investment.

Councillor Jonathan Glanz described it as great news for local businesses.

He said: "In tough times this shows the endeavour, hard work and entrepreneurship of workers and business in this area will help us to continue to buck the national trend.

"As a council we must however ensure that all developers are sensitive to the needs and wishes of local residents as any construction work take place. We want to ensure that Westminster is a great place to live as well as to work."

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And now it seems that there is good news afoot for the capital’s office space sector too, with experts predicting that the market will benefit greatly from pent-up demand and an emerging trend for office relocation within the city.

Cushman and Wakeman’s new report, which was issued on the back of weak take-up in London’s office sector, suggested that the second half of next year is destined for mass improvements in particular areas, with newly developed sites such as Clerkenwell and Shoreditch looking particularly promising.

This is in part down to the continuation of a theme for thrifty firms relocating from the West End to the other side of the city.

Around half of the London companies quizzed on their strategy for 2012 for the report said they were looking for ’opportunistic growth’, with a smaller amount (17%) targeting ’aggressive growth’.

Lighthouse Global carried out the research of 500 large UK companies, almost half of which have their main presence in London.

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The real estate giant said in its report on office space in Scotland that the rise came despite take-up in the third quarter of 2011 being considerably down over the previous two quarters, to 43,790 sq ft.

It reported 761,631 sq ft of total availability in the city, mostly in the second hand market. Only 17% of the total available space was taken up by Grade A newly completed space.

In Glasgow, third quarter take-up showed a 58% increase on the previous quarter, reaching 91,670 sq ft. It almost matched the same period in 2010 when the third quarter saw 98,235 sq taken.

Major deals in the third quarter saw Mercer take 33,551 sq ft at G1 and Barclays Bank 20,346 sq ft at Tay House.

In Edinburgh, the take-up in the third quarter reached 103,717 sq ft, which represented a 53% drop on the second quarter’s 202,000 sq ft.

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A Who Owns the City study revealed the figure and found overseas owners increased their stake in the City property market dramatically in recent years. They now account for 66% - more than three-fifths - of purchases by value in the last three years, compared with 1980 when ownership levels by foreign investors was only 8%.

Germany was the main external investor with 16% of proprietorship, Development Securities’ report said. The US came next with 10%. Middle East ownership rose to 6% although that of the Japanese dropped to 2%.

The capital is reported to be the city that attracts more inward office investment than anywhere else in the world.

The tough economic times had clearly not deterred London’s appeal to foreign investors, said Michael Marx, chief executive of Development Securities. He said quality and transparency of city offices appealed as a "safe haven" for foreign buyers. They, in turn, deepened market liquidity.

"It could be argued that these overseas investors, now in the majority, are critical to future values in the City," said Mr Marx.

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Analysts Jones Lang La Salle have said the supply gap in 2013 to 2016, being exacerbated by the current economic environment, "will provide opportunity for those who can speculatively develop or refurbish existing stock, as when the occupational market returns choice will be limited and competition will increase driving rental returns".

The company expects leasing markets across central London to be flat in 2012, but predicts rental growth will return during 2013.

Low supply coupled with a build up of demand will provide the ideal setting for office makeovers over the next 24 months, the analysts said.

The team, led by Neil Prime, head of office, made an optimistic forecast for the next five years - it said London’s office market will outperform both European and global competitors markets. The analysts did, however, acknowledge that the market may experience short term volatility.

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Year-end activity levels are likely to be very similar to those recorded in 2010, Jones Lang LaSalle indicated.

In the third quarter of the year, the organisation believes that the take-up of office interiors totalled more than 1.5m sq ft in the eight key markets covered by its study.

While volumes were 36.3% lower than they were during the same three-month period of last year, they were up by 22.9% on the statistics from the second quarter of 2011.

Jones Lang LaSalle’s national office agency chairman, Chris Hiatt, said: "Overall leasing activity across the eight regional office markets in Q3 2011 was boosted by a number of larger deals in the western corridor region. In contrast, Bristol city centre saw no office leasing activity over 10,000 sq ft to be concluded."

He added that caution is likely to be exercised by office occupiers in the medium term.

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Take-up of office space in central London increased by 26% in the third quarter, its strongest performance of the year, according to research by real estate consultancy CB Richard Ellis.

But spokesman Adam Hetherington warned that take-up continues to lag behind central London’s 10-year average of 2.9 million sq ft - where it has languished since the end of 2010.

The Docklands registered the most spectacular rise, notching a huge increase of 1,155% to hit 400,000 sq ft over the third quarter, while the City improved from 744,000 sq ft in the second quarter to 900,000 sq ft.

Mr Hetherington said: "While take-up has been generally weak throughout the year, the jump in leasing levels across almost all central London markets over the third quarter has been a positive sign."

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The flat occupier market was below last year’s levels, having slowed down because of fewer large requirements this year, said the study from BNP Paribas Real Estate.

Total take-up in Bristol centre to the end of the third quarter was 311,100 sq ft. This was a drop of 13% on the same period last year, as revealed in the adviser’s Bristol Office Market Autumn Report.

Meanwhile, there was a 233,500 sq ft take-up in the out-of-town market, clocking a drop of 23% on 2010.

Availability levels stayed at 2.2m sq ft in the city centre and 1.2m sq ft out of town, said the study.

The leading international real estate adviser said it was confident that Bristol’s economic diversity would underpin the office sector throughout next year, even though the occupational market was more difficult this year than last.

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