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Who is Nexus Publishing? Originally from a small town called Darlaston – about ten miles north of Birmingham – I moved to West Sussex about ten years ago to help develop one of the first online retailers. Having recently moved to Shropshire I am now enjoying the working from home life in a semi rural location. I have been a freelance writer and journalist for about fifteen years. Eight of them were spent doing various other jobs such as bookshop assistant, print finisher and returns clerk for a large library supplier, with the writing taking up evenings and any of my spare time. As you can see, much of my life so far has been spent working with books and publishing of one kind or another. My time as an employee came to a conclusion some six years ago with redundancy, so I took the opportunity – and the money – to see if I could survive as a full-time freelance writer. That was five years ago. There have been some lean times – just ask my wife, Joanne. But after tasting the freelance life, there’s no going back.

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Don’t set up your business in Milton Keynes!

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

If you are thinking of setting up your own business and are thinking twice about running your enterprise from home, think again. Renting office space can be very expensive indeed. A recent report has names Milton Keynes as the most expensive place to rent office space with a mindboggling cost of £2,500 per square metre!

Steve Jennings, director of business banking at Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank told BT Insight:  “Our research shows that, despite its property prices and salaries being among the highest in the UK, the South East isn’t always the most expensive place to run a business, in fact there are hotspots all over the country.”

The Top Ten most expensive locations for businesses outside London are:

1 Milton Keynes
2 Cambridge
3 Oxford
4 Guildford
5 Edinburgh
6 Chelmsford
7 Reading
8 Stevenage
9 Bristol
10 Manchester

This is of course not including London that still tops the charts as the most expensive place for frankly everything you can think of. I recently moved away from Crawley in West Sussex. Being about 45 minutes away from Victoria station in London made it convenient, but costs were beginning to rise as more people realised that they could live a few miles outside of London and still comfortably commute.

So my move to Shropshire has proven to be a superb decision as my costs are much lower. But it seems that there are hotspots of very high commercial property costs all over the UK.

Once again setting up and operating your business from home is the ideal solution. You can keep costs at an absolute minimum and you don’t have to worry about a landlord. You also have complete control over your space, something that shouldn’t be underestimated when you’re trying to run a business.

If you want to try and divide your home and working life, you could of course look for dedicated live/work properties that are now becoming available in ever growing numbers. You’ll have to be pretty flexible where you live of course as every area doesn’t yet have a ready supply of these properties, but you never know, your dream location may have a live/work development.

There Is 1 Response So Far. »

  1. Comment by Debbie Lamb on 26 June 2008:

    INVEST MILTON KEYNES RESPONDS TO ALLIANCE & LEICESTER REPORT:

    Desirable Milton Keynes named most expensive business location outside London

    High demand for property and a well-paid skilled workforce are two of the factors which have led to Milton Keynes being named the second most expensive UK location to run a small business – in Alliance & Leicester’s Cost Monitor (BCM).

    Commenting on Milton Keynes position as the most expensive location for business outside London, Grant Seeley, director of inward investment at Invest Milton Keynes said; “While the Alliance & Leicester reports cites Milton Keynes as the second most expensive ‘town’ to rent retail property space, the office market in Milton Keynes has witnessed significant growth over recent years at the competitive rental levels relative to the majority of centres within the South East office markets.

    “The new city is developing into a key commercial office centre most notably within the professional, financial service and technology sectors. This survey may highlight the city as an expensive location but it just reflects the high demand from business wanting to relocate here. New figures from accounting group UHY Hacker Young have revealed that Milton Keynes has the second highest growth in the number of small business in the UK – putting it on a par with London.

    “The favourable population forecasts and inward commercial development also supports the high level of residential development. Local businesses can have confidence that Milton Keynes is one of the most ‘recession-proof’ locations in the UK according to Knight Frank’s recent research for the Sunday Times. Knight Frank pinpointed Milton Keynes as fourth in the top 20 fail-safe housing investment towns in Britain, taking into account factors such as the health of the local economy, the local employment market and the quality of the workforce.

    “Unemployment rates in the city are only 2.9%, much lower than the national average (4.9%) and according to ACORN classifications, 70% of households in Milton Keynes are classified as wealthy achievers, comfortably off or living in areas of urban prosperity.

    “Milton Keynes is thriving and offers huge opportunities for business.”

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