One of the key concerns raised by Tech City companies during the Prime Minister’s visit to Tech City last November was the availability of suitable, flexible and affordable office space in East London. To address this, yesterday morning the Prime Minister met with property developers and public sector organisations to discuss:
1. a new planning strategy for Tech City, which is being prepared by the Mayor’s office to stimulate the growth of the technology cluster, and will be published before the end of the year
2. the regeneration of Old Street roundabout, for which a feasibility study is being prepared for publication later this year, funded by a number of partners
3. innovative approaches to supporting start-up businesses seeking space to grow on flexible terms, like the GLA scheme to provide a guarantee to developers of flexible office space in Tottenham through the London Enterprise Partnership
These steps will, we hope, begin to address some of the issues identified by local businesses around the property landscape of the area.
Policy measures such as the Entrepreneur Visa and the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme were created in response to the needs and concerns of the Tech City community. So, keep giving us feedback and suggestions on what would help the cluster flourish and we’ll pass these onto the policy-makers.
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If the Government is taking the property developer led route to regeneration and/or the develpment of TechCity it will ‘fail’.
The Silicon Roundabout cluster grew without any masterplan or intervention by planners – what makes Government think this is the way to go?
I am not saying that there is no role for government but using the agencies, people and methods they have used in the past isn’t going to work other than in subsidising large multi-nationals who are more interested in taking than giving.
Hi Steven – thanks for your comment.
This isn’t about a master plan by planners – we entirely agree that the organic growth of the cluster is key to its sustainability. But we’ve heard lots from the community about the issues with property in Tech City so we wanted to share those concerns with the property developers to see what could be done.
Best wishes,
TCIO