Surprisingly, given the Government edict to stay at home, during April 2020 only 46% of people did at least some of their work from home. Of those who did work from home only 86% did so because of Covid-19, according to the ONS.
According to these figures, only a minority of the workforce are rejecting the office. Are we blowing things out of proportion?
Despite the numbers, what has become clear is the business model of our cities was centred on the office worker and the effect of the pandemic has been significant. The British Retail Consortium has warned of the ‘devastating effect’ of home working on city centre retail. Whilst perfectly robust in January, the model is now seriously flawed.
However, employees have not stopped working, eating out, or shopping. Whilst city centre economies have nosedived, there have been some winners.
According to the Centre for Cities whilst all urban areas have yet to reach their pre-lockdown peaks, those which have recovered the strongest tend to be smaller and less focussed on professional services.
Blackpool, Bournemouth, Southend, Chatham, and Birkenhead are the strongest performers. At the other end of the spectrum London, Manchester, Birmingham, Oxford, and Leeds have posted the weakest recoveries.
Rather than a rejection of urban centres, the evidence suggests that workers are rejecting large cities.
The same is true of the residential property market. City centre markets have collapsed, but rural and small-town markets remain reasonably robust. According to Knight Frank, this response is characteristic of catastrophic incidents – and happened after the 9/11 and London bombings – but the difference now is the long-term nature of the crisis, which looks set to influence behaviour over the long-term.
It is now clear that people are making different decisions about where they live, work, and spend time – and they have the flexibility and ability to do so. The opportunity will be found not in forcing people back into old patterns but responding to new demands.
At Detail, we are already pioneering new and innovative approaches. In West Bromwich we are delivering co-working space alongside residential development at Metro Lofts, recognising that home workers will demand better workspace in the future and need better differentiation between their living and working environment.
A first in the West Midlands market, the new workspace will provide all the things expected from a modern office including flexible desk space, high-speed internet, storage, facilities for tea and coffee, and meeting rooms – all included as part of the enhanced amenity.
It recognises that town centres such as West Bromwich will be more popular as a location to live and work in the years ahead. City centres may be suffering, but we should not forget that smaller centres can benefit and thrive. Given Government and local policy has championed town centre renewal with little success, the Covid-19 pandemic offers an unexpected opportunity to deliver it.
No doubt there will still be a place for the city centre office. However, workers are yet to be convinced. As developers, it is not our job to dictate demand – only to respond to shifting attitudes and priorities, in as innovative and exciting a way as possible.
