ACCORDING to a report in the Financial Times, people are now returning to their UK offices in their greatest numbers since the start of the pandemic, with average occupancy of workspaces between February 7 and 11 reaching 23.3% —levels last seen in November 2021, before the outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
With normal occupancy estimated at 60% for most companies and demand for offices currently 7% –14% lower compared with prepandemic years, Mat Oakley, head of European commercial property research at Savills, thinks ‘occupancy numbers will come up as the weather improves, and with a bit of peer pressure. But will it ever go back to levels we’ve seen before? I don’t think it will’.
Although it’s still too early to assess the full impact of hybrid working on the market for rural property, down in the West Country, Ed Clarkson of buying agents Property Vision has already seen a quantum shift in the attitude of owners and buyers in recent months: ‘It’s no coincidence that the latest figures from Nationwide put Taunton top of the list for house-price rises nationally last year,’ he says. ‘Many country-house owners whose families are based down here probably commuted to London four or five days a week in the past; they now find that they only need to be there for half that time, and can work from home in comfort for the rest of the week.’
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 02, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 02, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
