‘Offices will be just 15 minutes from the home’
WORKERS will increasingly head to offices closer to home as the pandemic has changed commuting forever, a property boss is predicting.
The shift would allow people to live in so-called 15-minute towns – where amenities and offices are a short journey away by foot, bike or public transport.
Mark Dixon, boss of office rental giant IWG Group, says work is unlikely to return to pre-Covid ways “because it’s what people want, and because it’s what companies want”.
He points to lower commuting costs and saved time for employees – and lower rents for business.
Mr Dixon said working from home was a “forced experiment” which simply sped up trends that were already happening.
He revealed: “If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said exactly what I’m saying now.
“Office space – not all of it, but a large proportion – will be close to where people live.”
The pandemic gave staff and bosses a taste of how tech could transform their lives and businesses.
And Mr Dixon said staff did not enjoy full-time working from home. He added: “But they said, ‘Well, actually, you know, what, it’s quite good… spending an hour, two hours a day either stuck in traffic or on a railway train ruins my life’”.
He foresees a building boom away from cities following a surge in interest in suburban and rural office space.
IWG says demand in the suburbs rocketed by a third in the first quarter of 2021, further out it was up 20 per cent. In city centres it fell 11 per cent. Last month Ipswich said it wants to become the UK’s first 15-minute town. Britain can look to the Continent where many cities are already close to that.
Engineering firm Arup found workers only have to walk or cycle for 13.1 minutes to reach shops and parks in Madrid and Milan. Berlin and Paris were just outside the 15-minute dream. In London it took a typical 23.5 minutes.