The handbrake was firmly applied to regional office transactions in the first quarter of 2017, as take-up fell by 47% in comparison to the same period last year.
Just over 600,000 sq ft of space was let across the six key regional office markets, data from EG Research reveals, with Glasgow and Birmingham seeing the sharpest annual drops in overall activity to the tune of 77% and 55% respectively.
Glasgow did see the largest individual transaction of the quarter at Vincent Plaza, with 34,000 SQ FT let to Mott MacDonald, but the sizeable decline can be explained by an exceptional Q1 2016 which saw two of the five largest individual Glasgow office transactions EG has recorded since 2012 – for Scottish Power and ACCA.
At the current pace of take-up, the cities have 3.5 years of office stock available (including pre-marketing space), with rolling 12-month take-up standing at 3.6m sq ft – the lowest it has been since Q3 2013.
Source for all data: EG Research
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