Manchester office interiors 'most in demand'

Office design news from Morgan Lovell

Published on 12-01-2010

Research from Lambert Smith Hampton has shown Manchester is the most popular of the "big six" UK cities outside of London for office uptake.

The city beat competition from Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol and Leeds.

The report revealed demand for office interior space in Manchester remained relatively stable over the last 12 months despite the effects of the economic downturn, although uptake for 2009 was down by 25 per cent in comparison to the ten-year average.

In total, office uptake was approximately one million sq ft lower in the city in 2009 than in 2008.

Elsewhere, Kelvin Davidson, property economist at Capital Economics, recently said as long as the present "mini-boom" in office space continues, the UK could be in danger of values falling during the second half of 2010 when this period comes to an end.

He commented: "Our view for the average city rent is that there will be further falls this year and the same for the West End too. Of course, within that you can have prime going up a bit and secondary going down."

Posted by Ian Johnson.