McLaren’s renaissance drives success of Surrey CRE

The F1 season comes to a head this weekend in the heat of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and it will be compelling viewing for anyone with an interest in the commercial property market far away in green and leafy Surrey. McLaren is on the brink of winning the Constructors’ Championship for the first time since 1998, and success on the track for the Woking-headquartered company more than likely means success for Surrey CRE. “The renaissance of McLaren on the Formula 1 circuit has been very positive and we will see spin-offs of that,” said Curchod & Co partner Piers Leigh. “Generally speaking, when McLaren is doing well it does help that tech and high-end engineering sector in and around Surrey.” McLaren is one of a number of high-profile advanced manufacturing companies whose success acts as a magnet for occupiers to the market in Surrey. Leigh said: “What we see across commercial property is clustering, and once an area gets known for certain expertise then others looking to grow in that sector want to be there, and to tap into the labour pool and buy association with world-recognised brands like McLaren. “If you’re picking up staff that may have been at McLaren before, or if you’re in the defence sector being around the likes of QinetiQ is vitally important in building your own brand and the skillsets within it.” If McLaren is closing out the season almost neck and neck with the competition, Curchod & Co is finishing 2024 well clear of the rest of the market on the Radius On Demand Rankings for Surrey, with 375,000 sq ft transacted across 90 deals so far. But, said Leigh, conditions have been far from easy. “Anyone who has survived until 2025, congratulations. It has certainly felt like a difficult year.” Leigh is clear about the main reason for this. “You had a significant amount of the world’s largest economies going to the ballot box this year. That doesn’t help. Businesses generally don’t like uncertainty, so I think there has been a very cautious approach across the sectors in terms of how much they want to grow and how positive and bullish they are.” However, Leigh believes there is cause for quiet optimism. “We are now at the back end of 2024, we’ve got quite a degree of political direction – whether stability is the right word, who knows? Market reaction at the back end of the year has all been pretty positive so now it feels like businesses can build and go forward with some confidence that they know what is likely to come their way from a political standpoint. “We will hopefully get a bit of a bounce from the inauguration in the US. Normally what happens across the pond filters across to the UK, so I don’t expect any sudden lightbulb moments in January. I think it will be as slow and dark and testing as it usually is but, hopefully by the end of Q1, business sentiment across all sectors will be more positive than it has been over the past 12-18 months.” Leigh said office occupiers in the region are generally halving footprints but insisting on higher quality. However, this did not stop Curchod & Co kicking off 2023 with a hefty deal in which, almost inevitably, McLaren was involved. “As a business we have been lucky to have been on the back of some of the bigger transactions in the market,” said Leigh. “We did one of the largest office transactions in Surrey. We were involved in Victoria Gate in Woking where Surrey County Council took McLaren’s 66,500 sq ft building.” Surrey is archetypal commuter territory and Leigh said pre-pandemic habits are yet to return. “I definitely don’t think the old 6.59am from Worplesdon that I used to take is anywhere near the levels on a Friday that it used to be, but I think on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it definitely is. “London seems to squeeze seven days into three from the business community’s perspective, and as far as the local market is concerned, I don’t think we’ve got anywhere near back to normal yet in terms of a five-day working week and everyone being in the office.” However, Leigh senses this is shifting for operational reasons. “It is very difficult to grow, to develop the culture of a business with people working remotely,” he said. “It is also very difficult with training and the osmosis of hearing different conversations in the office and then developing your own style on the back of listening to your colleagues and how they handle particular enquiries.” Leigh also sees returning to work as a wellbeing issue. He said: “I’m hearing from clients that working from home for a long period of time has affected some employees’ mental health. You don’t have that interaction with colleagues where you can ask ‘How are you getting on?’ and say ‘I’m actually struggling with this’. Those conversations don’t happen if you are jumping in and out of Teams meetings.” If Leigh is right then, to borrow a phrase from F1, it could be a case of lights out and away we go for the office market in 2025. Listen to the interview in full: