LSE: London needs open workspace for creativity and growth

This week Carys Roberts, research Fellow of IPPR, reports for LSE on the government policy of permitted development rights and its effects on small and startup businesses.

London has recently been reconfirmed as the most expensive city to live and work in — 70% higher than San Francisco, the startup capital. In these extreme circumstances, the offer of open workspaces is a golden opportunity for startup businesses to lessen the pressure of upfront costs, whilst working in a collaborative and supportive environment. They also prevent London from losing the financial asset the creative industries provide.

However, affordable workspace is at risk under a government policy called permitted development rights. The policy is active in most of London’s boroughs, allowing the easy conversion of office to residential with the intention of helping to solve the housing crisis. However, the lucrative potential of conversion means that the policy is making affordable workspace increasingly scarce.

As the LSE article points out: “Many open workspaces, like Camden Collective’s Temperance Hospital which offers free space alongside business training, support people who couldn’t otherwise start a business to succeed and grow their enterprises.” Open hubs bring “life and dynamic economic activity to difficult-to-let ground-floor sites and vacant ‘meanwhile’ properties.”

The need to meet the demand for housing in London is a very real and urgent issue. But starving the city’s startups and SMEs of access to reasonably priced workspace will have a detrimental effect on our local economies.

Roberts calls on the next Mayor of London to lay out a clear plan which addresses both the housing crisis and the workspace shortage. The IPPR will be releasing a report with suggestions of what the Mayor should do to protect workspace.

You can read the full article here.