There were very few lights on in flats and nearly all of the retail units looked unoccupied. It's going to be interesting to see how the London commercial and residential property markets look in the "new normal". Many large " knowledge management" companies (financial services, media, advertising, IT, etc) are realising they can work just as efficient and productively with staff working from home and can see millions, if not billions, of savings if they ditch central city offices; then we've got retail companies, many moving to online sales where they'll prefer to stay avoiding premium rents on high streets. There's the hospitality sector - pubs, cafes, restaurants, hotel, travel, etc) but they'll be so cash strapped they'll either go bust leaving rents unpaid, or go nto administration or just scream at landlords for rent reductions - travel will likely either have only online sales or push for reductions at transport hubs. On the residential side, if offices are no longer in cities then employees have less reason to live there either. (Hence, travel income with be further hit by fewer commuters and business travellers.) So we're left with data centres, distribution centres, call centres, infrastructure services, schools, transport hubs, hospitality facilities, etc being the main physical work environments with perhaps the WeWork, Regus, etc for those times when those face-to-face meetings are unavoidable? However, few of those need to be in major city centres so can be dispersed around the country? And don't rely of too any data centres remaining in the UK; unless network latency is an issue post Brexit they'll possibly look to migrate to the EU or US depending on whether they want to fall under the GDPR umbrella or avoiud it? Just some thoughts.
Michael Ixer ● 2154d