Many local authorities have invested in the opening of a town centre flexible office space based on the business case that workspace centres contribute to their wider town centre regeneration strategies by fostering the growth of start-up businesses.

Grant funding is often critical to the success of these centres which are in locations where viability is challenging. A recent example is Greater Manchester Combined Authority allocating funds totalling circa £15 million in a Small and Medium Enterprise Workspace Fund which is set to support the development of 10 workspace centres across Greater Manchester, with a focus on repurposing town centre buildings to enhance the regeneration benefits.

Once the critical funding hurdle has been secured, the key factors that contribute to the success or failure of a flexible office space are technology, infrastructure and provision of amenity.

Technology is critical to ensure the success of a centre and plays a role throughout the life cycle of a user’s experience. From streamlining the initial search for a space and booking process to access to amenities such as video conferencing, high speed internet and collaboration tools, technological efficiency is pivotal. The more seamlessly technology allows users to use a centre's amenities, the greater the level of financial reward will be. Operators and landlords of flexible office spaces will place an ever-increasing reliance on technology to better understand how customers use their space, allowing for optimisation of centre amenities and infrastructure.

Infrastructure can cover a range of factors with some having been discussed already such as amenities and high-speed internet. Other factors play just as important a role and come in the form of furniture provision/layout, soundproofing and acoustics, storage facilities and community management. Such factors are critical to the ability of a centre to meet and flex to the demands of its users.

Perhaps the most important of these is community management, as a sense of community is what really entices a customer to leave the comfort of their home working environment. With environmental concerns becoming more acute, we expect to see increasing importance being placed on a centre's capacity to address environmental considerations, for example through the use of efficient lighting and sustainable materials/technologies.

Access to amenities both within a centre and in the local area are vital. Successful centres should at the bare minimum benefit from meeting rooms/conference rooms, changing rooms/showers, and of course, an excellent coffee machine/kitchen facilities. Centres which really set themselves apart are increasingly offering additional amenities such as a café or gym; and whileaccess to local amenities is less imperative, being located near shops, external cafés/gyms or attractive green spaces can be a significant advantage. Centres with sub-par amenities have struggled post COVID with occupancies at some centres dropping from circa 100% to circa 60%, thereby squeezing or in some cases completely eroding returns. Thriving flexible offices of the future will continue to evolve with trends and offer a level of amenity over and above their competitors.

Going forward, it will be interesting to follow whether suburban flexible office spaces start to open without the support of government funding as both operators and landlords recognise their potential. What is clear is that landlords/operators of such centres who do not give enough focus to technology, infrastructure and amenity will fail to capture their share of the flexible office market's future success.

Alex Andrews, associate director, development advisory and Jordan Saleh, head of flex North at CBRE