Shared workspaces and COVID-19: support from City Hall

The last ten years have seen a significant rise in the provision of shared workspaces across most London boroughs. They have provided the self-employed, micro and small businesses with much needed flexibility and appropriate styles of space. The scale of this provision can be seen through the London Growth Hub’s interactive open workspace map, which features over 400 spaces and artist studios across the Capital.

Like so many other business sectors, shared workspaces have been put at great risk by the COVID-19 crisis, with the entire concept challenged by the ongoing need for social distancing. But shared workspace providers were already facing a difficult time prior to the pandemic, with the 2016/17 business rates revaluation and a stretched rental market bringing affordability under pressure.

The majority of workspace providers and their tenants were initially excluded from the Government’s financial support schemes. However, on 2 May the Government announced an additional ￡617 million funding for small businesses which fell outside the earlier schemes - including those based in shared workspaces, who are able to demonstrate a drop in their income. The funds are being allocated, on a discretionary basis, by the local authorities.

This package was a welcome acknowledgement of the challenges many of the tenants and providers of shared workspaces face. However, the amount allocated to each of the local authorities in London is very small in proportion to the number of businesses that need it.

The Mayor has since written to the Chancellor and the Business Secretary highlighting the need for additional support for the small and micro business community (SMEs) in London, which is significantly larger than in other parts of the country.

In the meantime, at City Hall, we are actively supporting the sector with a range of initiatives.

We have launched a new Shared workspaces support programme to provide free support and advice to workspace providers and tenants on:

●    Business Rates Relief and other reliefs

●    Rent negotiation with landlords

●    How to handle talks with local authorities

●    Grant applications.

The programme will include webinars, small group online sessions and one-to-one advice.

In late April, the Mayor announced the allocation of ￡2.3 million to support creative and cultural industries at risk due to the impact of the coronavirus. Of this funding, ￡1.5 million will be allocated to support thousands of tenants across 200 artist studios workspaces. Information on how to access this funding can be found at https://www.creativelandtrust.org/covid-19-grant-fund.

The Mayor’s Workspace Advisory Group will be working to identify additional initiatives and support that could be developed in order to help the sector adapt to these new circumstances. To better understand the needs of the sector, we are seeking to gather more comprehensive data. To that end, we’re asking all of London’s shared workspaces to complete this survey. It takes just 10 minutes to complete and the information will help us identify how best to support you in the coming months.