THERE was strong demand for office space in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the first quarter of 2016 but the oil and gas downturn has led to huge reductions in Aberdeen.
Property consultant CBRE’s first quarter office market research, showed that in Edinburgh and Glasgow take up was over 280,000 sq ft in both cities, but has plummeted to just 35,000 sq ft in Aberdeen from 150,000 sq ft in the corresponding quarter of 2015.
In Edinburgh quarter one take up totalled 283,720 sq ft, up 17 per cent on the same period last year. Availability has decreased by 19 per cent since the end of 2015 and is back to levels last seen in 2001.
In Glasgow 282,455 sq ft of space was acquired for occupation during quarter one. This is already more than half of the full year figure for 2015. Total available supply at the end of the first quarter stood at 1.63m sq ft, down five per cent from the position at the end of 2015, and 13 per cent lower than twelve months ago.
Total transactions during the first quarter of 2016 reached just 34,624 sq ft in Aberdeen, down 76 per cent on the same quarter last year. And it is the second lowest level in the past ten years as the low oil price continues to impact on demand.
Total available supply at the end of the first quarter reached a new high of 2,029,122 sq ft.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here