Bristol has lost more than 800,000 sq ft of offices over the past two years as a result of the relaxation of office- to-resi-rules, making it the UK’s worst hit regional city.
The South West capital followed by Manchester topped Lambert Smith Hampton’s list of office space losers from the government’s decision to amend permitted development rights in May 2013. The change to rules allow developers to convert offices blocks into residential without applying for new planning permission.
Commuter towns also proved popular, with the Hertfordshire towns of Watford, St Albans and Hemel Hemstead collectively losing 900,000 sq ft of office space since 2013.
Over the past two years, office-to-residential conversions led to over 11m sq ft of office space vanishing from the UK office market, an area equivalent to Reading’s entire office market.
Oliver du Sautoy, head of research at LSH, said: “Office development in the regions may be on the rise again, but it this is being offset by space leaving the market for other, mainly residential uses. Our research indicates that the overall amount of UK office stock is entering a gradually downward trend, as occupiers opt to upgrade their space and use it more efficiently.”
Click on the interactive map below to see which UK cities have lost the most office space.
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