The Thames Valley is seeing a surge in technology companies that will help it ensure its position as Britain's Silicon Valley, according to today's Times:
According to Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker (CWHB), the commercial property consultants, 410,000 sq ft was leased in the wider Thames Valley area, stretching from West London to Basingstoke, during the first quarter of 2005 ï¿‘ 13 per cent higher than in the fourth quarter of 2004. The figures were boosted by a 112,500 sq ft letting to Motorola at Chineham Park in Basingstoke.
The M4 and M3 corridors became Britain's answer to Silicon Valley in the boom years, when large American technology giants opened European headquarters along the motorways. The biggest letting was to Cisco Systems, which signed up for over 600,000 sq ft at Green Park in Reading. Today the company still occupies less than a third of the space it leased and has been trying to rent out more than 200,000 sq ft of the surplus for about two years.
Cisco also signed up for new offices at Stockley Park, the UK's first US-style business park, where it is trying to sub-let about 160,000 sq ft of surplus space.
I'm not sure those two things add up to the same answer, but then again I'm not an estate agent. Thank goodness for that.
