LONDON'S EMPTY OFFICES

Workers Press no. 949, 18 December 1972 · scan page 3

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Well over 10 million square feet of office space in London is vacant, according to David Eversley, the retiring chief planner of the Greater London Council.

His total includes old offices and new offices which have been previously let and blocks not yet completed but due for completion. . He said the actual figure was in reality much higher. Much office space was held in reserve. Few were in a hurry to complete unfinished buildings and there was little interest in taking up planning permissions.

*The space that is available is kept-in my view-deliberately empty by asking rents which nobody can afford on very short leases,' according to Mr Eversley:

If all the planning permissions granted by the GLC were taken up, the figure of vacant office space might be nearer 15 million to 20 million square feet by now, he added.

There was a tacit agreement between property developers not to reduce rents.

BID FOR CAR BY PHILIP WADE Such is the speed of the