Councils urged to share office interior space

Office design news from Morgan Lovell

Published on 18-06-2009

Councils should share office interior space in order to cut down on costs and improve environmental performance, the Audit Commission has recommended.

The organisation noted that at present, up to a third of council offices do not share their workspace with any other institutions and therefore there is room to improve efficiency through sustainable office design and uptake.

Bharat Shah, deputy chair of the Audit Commission, states: "The recession is a good time for councils to plan how to use the property they own more efficiently and possibly even to acquire assets for the future."

Therefore, local councils are being advocated to share their facilities.

Lucy Pedler, director of the Green Register, recently noted that green building practices need to be increased in the future if the government is to meet its own targets for reducing carbon emissions in the UK.

She argued that while the uptake of sustainable office design has increased in recent years, this growth is still not taking place at a fast enough rate.