By now most of us are familiar with hot desking, but what about desk hoteling?

Hot desking simply heading into the office (or co-working space, shared workspace facility etc) and using an available desk. While it does have many benefits, it also received its fair share of criticism.

Why don’t people like the idea of hot desking?

Hot desking can be uncertain. You don’t know where you’ll be sat or who you’ll be sat next to. What if the office is full? This can be especially frustrating if you’re heading in 5 days a week as you have to take all your stuff in with you every day and always changing desks. Many offices use hot desking to maximise space efficiency and encourage team members to interact with different people.

Hot desking is suited towards people who use shared office facilities a few days per week/month. For example, if your team only need to use a couple of desks twice a week, a co-working space can offer you this without making you pay for the days that you don’t use. This is much better value than hiring a whole office suite that is rarely at 100% capacity.

But there is still an uncertainty about where you will be sitting, and will you be sat with your team?

This brings us to Desk Hoteling

Desk Hoteling is very similar to hot desking, but rather than it being first-come-first-serve, you can pre-book your desks to ensure you are sat where you need to be sat.

Often using an app or booking system, you can reserve specific desks when you need them with confidence.

This method of office management is wonderfully geared towards co-working spaces as it means you know the desk will be sanitised and prepared ready for your arrival, you won’t be wasting time trying to find desks near your colleagues, and you still only paying for the space you use.

How to book a desk at The Racquets Court

As part of our research into making The Racquets Court as safe as possible during these unusual times,  we are excited to announce that we are launching a new desk hoteling model which will enable companies and individuals to specifically reserve desks as and when they need them.

Simple head over to our booking page, sign up and select your desks and take it from there or get in touch with a member of our team

 

 

Book Now

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

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The Racquets Court is dependent on vibrant life returning to Newcastle. And vibrant life in the City depends on workplaces like The Racquets Court. We’re inter-dependent. This post is about making Newcastle attractive to business.  If we can do this, the people of Newcastle, and around, will return – in droves.

What must we (the owners of The Racquets Court) do, (our bit) and what must ‘the City’ do, (its bit)?  This post is about the latter; we discuss the former here.

Is investing in our City a ‘choice’?

For close to a year, there has been a debate about lockdown choices.  Should we prioritise health or the economy?  Our position is that this is not  a ‘choice’.  We prioritise health because unless our population is healthy, they will not be working, buying goods and services, stimulating demand.  The health of our people is the pre-condition to a healthy economy.

Some may argue that investing in our City is a ‘choice’. In other words, we can choose between prioritising resource allocation to our communities most in need, and investing in making Newcastle attractive to business. However, like the Covid-19 example, this is not a choice.  Unless Newcastle is attractive to business, those most in need will continue to suffer joblessness and deprivation.  Businesses that are attracted to Newcastle or are started here, create jobs which are a pre-condition for an end to deprivation.

Choosing to invest in Newcastle

Restoring life to Newcastle is about reimagining the extensive literature on what makes locations attractive to businesses. This is not new material; it has been around a long time. We must remember and adapt it to the current / post Covid-19 situation we face.

Location attractiveness to businesses – those who run them and work in them is about four features:

  1. Are we close to arts and entertainment facilities that our people can enjoy and use? This is the culture effect.
  2. Do transport links effectively and efficiently connect our business and our people to those other places we need to connect to? This is the easy access effect.
  3. Does the location look good? Is it attractive? Will our people want to walk its pavements to get to the arts venues that it houses? This is the ‘wow’ effect.
  4. Are we close to other businesses with whom we co-operate and compete and organisations that support our activity such as Universities or trade associations? This is the cluster effect.

The culture effect.

In spite of evidence that shows that, for entrepreneurs, theatres, galleries, museums are greater attractors than beaches and countryside, the North East seems wedded to promoting the latter over the former. Perhaps this explains why Darlington has attracted the Treasury rather than Newcastle – an odd decision which may incite insurrection amongst the Mandarins.

For Newcastle, it must be a priority to open our culture venues as soon as we can. They must not be starved of support; their role is crucial.

The easy access effect.

People will continue to be nervous of public transport for some time. How might we facilitate access? Perhaps the restrictions on some parking might be eased? Perhaps city fringe spaces might be opened?  For example, the space traditionally used for the Hoppings on the Town Moor might be used with people completing the journey on foot.  How many other cities in the UK have such a potential facility so close to the City centre?

I am not of course suggesting this as a permanent facility – merely a temporary one until a semblance of normality is resumed.

The ‘wow’ effect.

It’s very good news indeed to see that the City is to invest in its Centre.  I have occasionally been dismayed by previous efforts in the City which have featured copious quantities of astroturf and planting and plant containers that are aesthetically challenged – so please let this happen to deliver a ‘wow effect’.

But it’s not just the City Centre. Gosforth is a key residential attractor for entrepreneurs and others thinking about re-locating to Newcastle.  Gosforth High Street is currently a mess of largely filthy red and white poles delineating cycle lanes, with the white patches peeling off many of them. This is not a plea for the removal of cycle lanes. It is a plea to make them look good.

The cluster effect.

To deploy a cliche … last but not least.  Those that know my background will be unsurprised to see me talk about clusters. I led the UK’s whole economy cluster mapping project in 2001;  I remain persuaded that the concept is powerful.  It is surprising just how much of what we said 20 years ago, retains its currency.

For businesses like ours (data technology – ish), proximity to Newcastle University is a great example of the cluster phenomenon. However, the relationship of our business to others, close by, is less obvious. I have no idea what clusters there are – and I am not persuaded that others do.

Are there examples of City Centre clusters?

Our own City of London is an obvious blueprint. The City takes in all financial services, City University, specialist printing (financial services is THE biggest user of print services) and so on. Post Brexit – who knows?

Making Newcastle attratvie to business - examples from LA
Clothing everywhere / California Mart / FIDM. CLICK to enlarge

Outside the UK, the clothing cluster in Los Angeles is a wonderful exemplar.  The cluster captures masses of manufacturers right there in central LA, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) and California Mart, where buyers from across the US can easily visit hundreds (yes hundreds) of small clothing designers.

I recall discussing the strategy that gave rise to the re-imagined and commercially successful fashion infustry in Los Angeles (with the LA Development Corporation). My overwhelming impression was the clarity with which the strategy was articulated, based as it was on a solid research base. The LA cluster is now bigger and more successful than that in New York. It has given rise to brands like Diesel and American Apparel as well as clothing tech businesses that challenge the traditional hegemony of France and Germany.

Both of these are examples of clusters based on markets (finance and clothing). Today, we’re more likely to see clusters defined by a technology – ‘digital’ for example.

Clusters – technology based or market based?

I find it difficult to identify the glue that might bind businesses together simply because they use similar tech.  Certainly, the most recent work on clusters is remarkably devoid of a market focus.  A 2018 BEIS study uses some nifty maths to identify clusters, but I don’t see what use the analysis is.

For example, this study identifies the second largest advertising cluster in the UK to be centred on Manchester (my team found the same in 2001 – industrial structures change slowly). However, the study evinces no curiousity about why it’s located there.

The answer is to with the fact that Manchester was the home of the original catalogue industry (Grattan for example) that sprung out of the clothing businesses based in the North West – the precursor of online apparel. 1 THIS IS WHAT WE SAID IN 2001:  Perhaps associated with both textiles and household goods is the region’s major strength in mail order retailing. Its size, degree of geographic concentration, links to industries such as market research, advertising and packaging and its role as a distribution channel for consumer and household goods, suggests that mail order might be seen as a significant regional cluster in its own right. In this context, it is worth emphasising that the industry is not dissimilar in many ways to the emerging dot.com industries.

And from the embers of what was there, other things spring up.  Alongside Misguided, there is Boohoo, Pretty Little Things, Matalan and others.  Supporting them is the textiles department of Manchester University and those other industries (advertising and so on), that we identified in 2001.  They are all thriving and adapting in a digital age.

Having a market oriented understanding of clusters enables strategies to prevent clusters unravelling, or stimulating appropriate responses if that unravelling can’t be stopped.

For the moment, suffice to say that the evolving industrial structure of Newcastle has never been more important. I don’t detect a strategy for it, but if vibrancy is going to be restored to our city, then we need one.

Making Newcastle attractive to business:  the cost

As a business resident in Newcastle, I am not wholly familiar with the parties to all of this.  I think my comments take in the City itself, NE1 (the Business Improvement District for central Newcastle), The Freemen of Newcastle (who own the Town Moor), bus operators and so on.

This is important for us. We’d be prepared to increase our NE1 levy to contribute.  I recognise this is a team effort – we want to be in the team …..

 

Book Now

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

Read More >

6th February 2024

The Racquets Court Wins Award

The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

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Hiring employees should be quite straight forward. Right?

All you need to do is write a job description, post it online and start interviewing. While this sounds quite simple, attracting and retaining the right people is hard. In an ideal world, you’ll find someone quickly who is:

  • Qualified
  • Experienced
  • A good fit with your team

But this is challenging. Flexible working is one of the things being used by businesses to draw in the best people.

In the UK 84% of businesses are using flexible workplace policies to attract and retain top talents. The global average is 77%. According to the IWG Global Workplace Report, businesses believe flexible working plays a critical role in widening the talent pool. And workers confirm that having a choice of work environment plays a key role in evaluating work opportunities (70%).

Organisations of all sizes take advantage of remote working and no longer need to be restricted by location. Businesses don’t have to wave goodbye when a talented employee needs to relocate for personal reasons or turn down an applicant because she lives somewhere else.

Having said that, remote working can con with some challenges.

Remote Working

I’m worried that remote working will impact on our company culture

Will the business end up with a team of people who just don’t know each other? Should the business be worried that remote workers won’t work as hard? A lot of this comes down to how the team is managed. It is important regularly to bring remote workers into the main office. Scheduling recurring skype meetings ensure remote workers aren’t strangers to everyone else. If there are concerns about home distractions impacting on work output, then working in a co-working space ensures an ‘office environment’.

Using technology to enable remote working.

Remote working can be more expensive initially. The business will need to supply a company computer/laptop and possibly a phone. There is the need to ensure a good, robust and reliable internet connection. It may also be necessary to set up VPN connectivity or access to individually used bandwidth.

Ensuring security for remote working

Depending on the work, security may be a concern.  Do employees need access to secure printing and sensitive documents? This is harder to manage when working outside the office. 45% of workers report business concerns about data security and 19% are concerned about a lack of remote cybersecurity systems.

Informal remote working for example from a coffee shop may give rise to issues to do with physical possessions (what do you do with a laptop when the loo calls?)

Are remote workers motivated and productive?

Let’s face it, working from home can be distracting. Whether it’s the housework, family or door-to-door sales calls, you can be surrounded by distractions. But businesses have deadlines which must be managed and performances and behaviours which are appraised. There is little evidence to suggest that remote workers perform less well than others. Well managed people are productive whether they’re working 20 meters away or 20 kilometres away.

Remote Working

A high turn over of staff will cost businesses time and money. Allowing employees to work remotely where appropriate will help a business stand out from the crowd and show their team that they are trusted.  So while the initial setup may take some getting used to, we believe that remote working can be beneficial to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Get in touch to find out how The Racquets Court can support companies or individuals interested in remote working.

Book Now

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

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6th February 2024

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I’ll be honest, several years ago I didn’t know what co-working, hot desking or virtual offices were. It turns out I wasn’t alone. Since we opened, we still receive plenty of enquiries asking to understand these services and who they are for.
Co-working, hot desking and virtual offices are all aspects which can make up a workspace like The Racquets Court. They are used by businesses of any size from sole-traders to global corporations.

 

Co-Working

According to Lexico “[co-working] is the use of an office or other work environments by people who are self-employed or working for different employers, typically so as to share equipment, ideas, and knowledge.”

Co-working spaces are thought to have stemmed from 90s Hackerspaces. They were created for the ‘creatives’ but nowadays, they are a sought-after solution for companies of all sizes. Imagine being able to hire the talent you want but without having to relocate your HQ across the country? Larger companies are making full use of this great opportunity by hiring a few desks in the towns and cities across the UK so they can set up new offices, hire local talent to work remotely or to set up project teams closer to their clients.

 

The self-employed, freelancers and micro-companies also benefit from co-working spaces. They can have all the benefits of an office without the worry of isolation and huge overheads.

There are many perks to a co-working space but one of our favourites is the fantastic networking opportunities available. You never know who might move in on the desk across the way or who might be in the kitchen. They are typically 24/7 too so you’re not confined by the standard 9-5.

Co-working spaces generally require a commitment in the form of a monthly fee. For that you’ll get a dedicated desk, you can store your equipment and all your bills (should be) included.

Hot Desking

Hot desking is the practice of working as and when you need. Workspaces which offer hot desking usually mean you can hire a desk on the days when you need one. This is a great short-term solution for:

  • People who work from home and want to get out of the home office for a day or two
  • People who travel for work and need a base to work in-between appointments
  • Small task forces who need to solve a specific problem away from the usual office
  • Teams who work remotely and like to have somewhere to meet

Hot desking is a great solution to the coffee shop take-over as it provides workers with dedicated, purpose-built workspaces (read this great blog here by Hubble “There are so many better places to work than a coffee shop”).

One of the joys of hot desking is the freedom to come and go. You can try out lots of spaces with next to no commitment before you find one that works. Once in your perfect space, you can usually upgrade to a co-working membership and make it your new home from home (or office from office…).

I used coffee shops as ‘day offices’ in between meetings while we were developing TRC. While it was great to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city centre, I ended up frustrated with the Wifi, spending way too much on coffee and left generally feeling I’d been unproductive…and it was weird asking strangers to watch my stuff while I nipped to the loo!

 

Virtual Offices

Virtual offices are another solution offered by workspaces but for people who maybe don’t have the want or need for a physical space. These are often used by those who want to be associated with a specific place or building.

A city centre virtual office, for example, gives your business a city centre presence. This is great if you wish to have a presence in a new city, or perhaps you just don’t want your business address to be your home address.

Often you can get different packages which include various business services such as mail handling, phone answering and message taking services and meeting rooms to name a few.

Virtual offices are used by many different businesses such as:

  • an established business who want a presence in a different city
  • a sole-trader who doesn’t want their mobile to be their business number
  • a freelancer who is happy to work from wherever but wants a stable business presence for their clients.

If you are looking at virtual offices, look for one which also allows you the option to hot desk or book meeting rooms so you can impress your clients and suppliers.

In Conclusion

Think of workspaces like hotels. There are many different types, from huge budget ones to small, luxurious boutique ones. It’s easy to see them all as offering the same basic thing (ie a bed for the night) yet not understand why they all charge different prices. Don’t overlook the value and quality of what you get. Make sure you do your research and find one which reflects your business, the work you do and will help you attract clients.

There are many different reasons why a company or an individual may want to use a workspace. Whether they want to test out working in a new area, have recently relocated, or hiring talent from further afield, The Racquets Court is here to help. Get in touch with our Community Manager to discuss what solution works best for you.

Book Now

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

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6th February 2024

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The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

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If you were to use our headline as a search term, you’d find very little to answer the question that’s implied. This, from Zoopla, is one of the better pieces – at the least it refers to things like energy costs.

However, if you agree a conventional lease on office space, you’ll perhaps be surprised to discover that the most expensive thing you contract for is likely to be your cleaning.  The Zoopla piece does not mention it and it’s never highlighted – perhaps because ‘dirt’ is not something we want to think about too actively. Or perhaps it’s because cleaning contracts conjure a picture of poorly paid, often exploited, usually women employees.

However, when researching this broad area for our investment in The Racquets Court, it became clear that cleaning is either first or second on the sorted list of costs associated with occupying an office.  The only cost that cleaning might compete with is connectivity – I’ll come back to that.

With all of this in mind, let’s look at the TRUE cost of office occupation – both the tangibles and the intangibles.

In what follows, we’ve assumed an office space of 1,866 square feet – coincidentally, the space on the first floor of The Racquets Court.

Cleaning

The unskilled nature of cleaning leads to exploitation and cut-throat competition amongst companies.  The following breakdown is on a cleaning company’s website; I’ve updated the salary cost to reflect the current minimum wage and assumed 2 hours to per day for a space that houses around 20 people. This will include things like emptying waste paper bins, keeping paper goods topped up and so on.

Hours Days Per week Per annum
Daily 2 5 10
Deep clean 1 1 1
11
Pay per hour £8.21 £90.31 £4,696.12
On costs 15% £103.86 £5,400.54
Materials £9.00 £468.00
Company service charge £800.00
TOTAL £6,668.54

 

So, around £7,000 per annum or £3.75 psf.  In The Racquets Court, we’ve decided to employ our own cleaning people. They are paid £10 per hour and their terms and conditions are the same as others we employ.  Broadly speaking, we’ve chosen to apply the margin that a cleaning company might enjoy to the package enjoyed by the cleaners themselves. This does represent a management overhead for us, but one that we think is right.

Service charge

Usually around £6 psf in Newcastle, this will cover things like cleaning and lighting common areas, the rubbish disposal contract, insurance and so on.

Coffee / tea / staff maintenance

OK, you may not choose to provide this, but if you do, you’ll find it costing around £5 pcm per employee to which must be added the overhead associated with providing decent coffee making machinery.  This will total around £0.90 psf.

Gas / Electricity

One of the more difficult to forecast but for a business employing around 20, the total power bill is around £6,500 per annum.  See here for some detail on that.  In our example, power will cost around £3.50 psf.

Rates

In Newcastle, rates add between £7.50 – £8.00 psf.  So, let’s assume, £7.50

Telephone

The main costs here are set-up and ongoing.  Let’s assume a modest £500 per annum or £0.30 psf.

Connectivity

The Racquets Court connectivity has been well documented.  We have a gigabit bearer which is set to deliver 200Mb upload and download.  Of course, we can scale beyond this if required. Achieving this routinely with providers (if it can be achieved at all) would require a leased line. There are many providers but this one is representative. The cost is around £300 pcm for a 36-month contract.  However, this does not capture the additional costs involved (e.g. firewall).  Conservatively, we’d estimate the costs over 36 months to average around £,6,500 per annum or £3.50 psf.  For those interested, this is an informative thread on the subject.

Back office management

Yes, things go wrong. The gas meter reading is weird; the coffee hasn’t turned up for the coffee machine; the maintenance contract on the leased line isn’t delivering; why are those calls being charged for on the phone invoice.  And there are around 100 invoices per annum to pay on the maintenance and management of office space for around 20 people. We estimate that this requires around 15% of a person’s time (a bit less than a day per week).  This is NOT a simple clerical task – dealing with suppliers who are business critical requires a degree of skill.  We assume a total salary bill for such a person (including on costs) to be £25,000 per annum.  15% of this is £3,750 or £2.00 psf.

Summary of tangible on-going costs

If we add these costs, we come to £27.45 psf – the sum to be added to the rent psf.

Fit out – tangible but spread out

The Racquets Court fit out is very high quality and includes high specification meeting room facilities. This site shows that furniture etc will cost between £1000 and £2,500 per person.  The Racquets Court is towards the top end of this.  Let’s assume the most basic provision – for around 20 people, this represents a cost of around £25,000 to include meeting room facilities.  If we assume depreciation over 5 years, this is £5,000 pa or £2.70 psf.

Cabling for connectivity also represents a one-off cost – obviously written off over the life of the occupancy.  We’d estimate Cat6 cabling for around 20 people to cost around £3,000 or £0.53 psf over a (say) 3-year lease term.

Additionally, there is a fit-out cost – perhaps carpeting, perhaps, kitchen equipment, perhaps a wall or two.  Knight Frank estimates an allowance of £30 psf for this – if it’s necessary.

Representing both a tangible cost and an intangible cost are ‘dilapidations’ – restoring your space to the condition in which you found it.  This is impossible to forecast but it represents an intangible cost as well as a tangible one because it’s often a hassle and often goes to some kind of arbitration.

The intangible costs

There are two very significant intangible costs associated with the occupation of office space.

They are:

  1. The interaction of business need with supplier contracts. You will have contracts for all of the services you need. The space itself will be the most onerous of the contracts – once you’re in, it’s difficult to leave. If you install a leased line, your commitment is considerable – both to your location and to the lengthy contract required.  You may be able to agree short term contracts elsewhere, but usually they’ll be 12 months at a minimum.
  2. The management of the space. We’ve accounted for this in our costs (£2.00 psf) but alongside a £ allowance, there’s the sheer effort that goes towards managing the space – which has nothing to do with the business you are actually pursuing.

In short  …

…  the rent per square foot is usually the least costly element of the occupation of an office space. Add in the other tangible and intangible costs and it is clear that flexible, service led space is an attractive option.

 

Book Now

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

Read More >

6th February 2024

The Racquets Court Wins Award

The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

Read More >


What a way to spend a Tuesday evening!

With canapes circling, drinks flowing, and enticing cupcakes, Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council, officially opened The Racquets Court.

The exclusive launch event, held on 14th May 2019, included well-known representatives from leading tech businesses, Newcastle City Council, NE1, Newcastle and Northumbria Universities.

Nick Forbes, Paul Miller, Matthew Smith

Nick said:
“Newcastle was home of the first industrial revolution and we need to be a part of the next industrial revolution too, and what The Racquets Court is hoping to achieve is to consolidate our position as a global leader in digital technology and understanding big data. What you’re achieving here is, I hope, a part of a bigger narrative for the rebirth and regeneration of Newcastle as a major global city.  The transformation of this building symbolises the rebirth and regeneration of Newcastle.” 

The Racquets Court is the first building to be connected to the Stellium 40km metro fibre network which delivers latency to New York of 65 milliseconds; the network supports near real-time access to rapidly changing data (you can read more about our connectivity here). This phenomenal technology is helping the city become one of the best connected cities in the UK and really helping to put Newcastle on the map.

Paul Miller, co-founder of Gavurin, talked to guests about the journey the building had been on and how the vision for The Racquets Court was realised with the help of some of Newcastle’s finest’s businesses. Tolent, IDP Architects and Elliotts Quantity Surveyors played key roles in the restoration of the building (read more about this here).

Their teamwork has earned a place on the shortlist for the Constructing Excellence North East Awards for the award for Integration & Collaborative.

Paul said:
I’ve learned that Newcastle has some great businesses creating wonderful things. The City’s connectivity offers opportunities to take that creativity everywhere – fast.

Paul Miller
Paul Miller, Co-Founder of The Racquets Court & Gavurin

The event provided a platform for The Racquets Court to showcase how far the building had come in a short space of time.

In its original form, the building had only one floor, was open and as dull as an empty sports hall often is! The transformation has included the restoration of the beautiful glass roof and eye-catching victorian spiral staircase. Another floor has been added to create more space, but it has been left open to retain the buildings unique character.

The Racquets Court was also shortlisted for the 2019 RICS awards which took place in April, and is also shortlisted for a second CENE award for Preservation & Rejuvenation. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 14th June 2019.

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all our guests for helping celebrate with us, and we’re excited to welcome all members to The Racquets Court.

Book Now

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

Read More >

6th February 2024

The Racquets Court Wins Award

The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

Read More >


The co-working hybrid is a mix of the modern and the traditional. We’ve picked the best aspects of each to create our product

 

Traditionally favoured by independent workers and start-ups, co-working has steadily grown over the years and is now considered a ‘must’ by many large companies and remote workers. It’s even a great way to create a new base for your company in various locations with fewer overheads while allowing you to recruit from a wider pool of candidates.

The first official co-working space opened around 2005, however, this office movement is thought to have stemmed from 90s Hackerspaces. These spaces were originally created as a solution for lone workers, allowing them somewhere outside of their home to work and socialize. Historically, co-working spaces were different from serviced offices as they were created by and for the ‘creatives’ rather than the ‘suits’. In recent years, these two types of the workplace have begun to blend making way for a new collection of spaces with different focuses.

Take us for example, while we have taken some elements of a serviced office, we have also taken inspiration from the co-working movement. This is partly to do with the physical aspects of the building. As a former sports court, there was a huge open space and high ceilings allowing us to add an upper floor. Rather than creating traditional, boxed in offices, we wanted to look to the new way of working and the ‘co-working values’ of collaboration, openness, community, accessibility, and sustainability.

Open-plan spaces are social. They are designed to encourage communication and promote a sense of teamwork due to the diversity of its members. It becomes a place where like-minded businesses can inspire one another, network and potentially find collaborative work partners. Finding yourself sharing a space with an array of people from different backgrounds, with different interests, different businesses and different goals give you unique opportunities that would have otherwise pass you by in a more typical office building.

“[Co-working] is a place and a style of working that combines independence and co-dependence. One that allows you to be a soloist, but still plays in the orchestra. To be social when you need to and to hold you accountable for delivering the things you say as important” (Dunstan, M (2015) The Co-working Revolution: Four Secrets to Successfully Working for Yourself)

While bean bags and pool tables may be suitable for the more quirky co-working space, we have followed a more traditional aesthetic but with our own twist. We chose a calming blue colour scheme as this is said to improve efficiency and performance, and rather than removing the original glass ceiling, we restored it and added several other large windows around the space. Natural daylight has been proven to enhance productivity, health and mood. We knew also that for the work our current and future members do, our priority had to be to get the essentials right (such as connectivity, comfort, location and a focussed environment to name a few) and offer a high quality, well thought out product.

 

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

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6th February 2024

The Racquets Court Wins Award

The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

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Newcastle / Gateshead has only one FTSE listed HQ, and we’ve felt privilaged that the core team that built Sage Software’s HQ has joined together again to restore The Racquets Court.

We own and inhabit The Racquets Court and that makes us unusual as building developers. We were told that it’s unusual for developers to be as involved as we were with every detail – to include the coat hooks.  We were fussy but not once did the teams at IDP, Tolent or Elliot do anything other than rise to meet our frequent challenges.  And the ‘process’ was managed as well as the build itself. This came home to us about half way through the construction …

… we were visited on site by two women responsible for a regional charity.  As they were leaving they asked us, in relation to Tolent’s people on site, “are they all like that” .  When we asked what they meant, they replied “are they all … nice”.  Of course, the answer was “yes” and that was our experience throughout – alongside stunning professionalism.  The project finished in the week that it was forecast to finish at the outset.  How about that for unusual!

Tolent and IDP and Elliots are local businesses and walking around Newcastle, Tolent’s brand is found frequently.  But – and this may be the crucial variable – their market is national and perhaps it’s this that makes them competitive and productive.

The implications of the local (small) market

The Newcastle / Gateshead market is a small one.  Indeed, that of the North East as a whole is also.  But that’s not the real issue – the real issue is that there simply aren’t that many businesses.  In other words, the number of businesses per head of population in the North East is around one-quarter that of London and the South East.  Put crudely, there are four times as many interior design businesses in London as there are in the South.

There are a number of implications of this – and some of the most important are not relevant here -but let’s take the implications for a potential customer for any service.  If that customer is not aware of this core fact; if that customer travels little in the UK and to the South East not at all, then that customer is very likely to be faced with a price which is high and service which is poor.  If local purchasing is ignorant of these facts (and most will be) they are likely not to recognise uncompetitive pricing and will not be demanding customers.

An example

As developers of The Racquets Court, we commissioned relatively few services ourselves.  One of the larger services that we did commission is that of connectivity and the bits and bobs associated with it. The core element of that is the Stellium line – upon which we comment elsewhere.  Stellium is not a locally owned business and it is by definition global. It behaves that way and service was outstanding.

Stellium only brings a line to the front door – at that point is hits a range of swithches and stuff which distribute connectivity around the building. We initially sought 2 proposals from local businesses. The costs of these were similar – and it seemed to us, rather high.

So we decided to call 2 businesses in Leeds.  The first thing to say is that the Leeds conurbation has a signiticant number of IT service businesses from which to choose.  The response from each of these businesses was superb – speedy, uncomplicated and friendly. The estimates from these 2 were also suprisingly close to one another.  But here’s the thing, these 2 were HALF the cost of the Newcastle based businesses.  And that is a very significant sum.

In the end, we had 4 proposals.  Each of the 4 offered different switches (3 were Cisco offers), but the fundamental cost differences were down to the offered firewall.  We carefully considered the proposals and our key requirements and decided that the expensive firewalls were not appropriate to our needs.  We did not consider that local offers quizzed us sufficiently before offering such expensive firewall options.

We did not award the project to the cheapest of the 4 proposals we received.

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

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6th February 2024

The Racquets Court Wins Award

The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

Read More >


We’ve tried hard but it’s really not been easy. Generally, and with some very noteable exceptions, British manufacture and North East business displayed uncompetitive pricing and poor service.  Here’s the story.

We know something about industrial clusters, so we knew to take a trip to London.  (Paul Miller led the project which mapped UK clusters – here’s the Executive Summary. For more of the study, please contact us).

The UK (office) furniture cluster

This is one of the UK’s most dense clusters. All things office interior are to be found in a small patch of Clerkenwell – an area roughly between Angel and Barbican in London.

(All things home furniture are around Tottenham Court Road).

Every British, American and European manufacturer of office interior products has a showroom here alongside consultants and design studios. The area has an annual design event called Clerkenwell Design Week.

We wanted to buy British and to source locally – we were only partially successful.

There are few British manufacturers of high end office furniture. We walked into one of the biggest in Clerkenwell, had a look round and our contact details were noted;  4  days later, we got a call back.  We identified in some detail our requirements and then waited.  Two weeks after that, we got a call from the Newcastle based agent and we politely offered feedback, once again identified our requirement and once again waited.  Nothing happened.

We were also disappointed that UK manufactured products were often significantly more expensive than European competitors.

And then there’s the service and the quality.  More on that below.

(We largely achieved ‘buy British AND buy local’ in the restoration and construction of The Racquets Court – that story is here).  Our experience of purchased services in the restoration and construction of The Racquets Court – legal, connectivity, internal switches, wifi and so on – is largely good, and that story is here).

Racquets Court seating

Office Chair

We’ve got four seating types in the office:  office desk chairs, meeting room chairs, conferences, kitchen chairs and sofas.  They come from Germany, Switzerland and Denmark.  They have been purchased with lumbar support and comfort in mind.

 

Our desk chairs are made by Viasit in Germany and the particular model we bought is both innovative and winner of the 2017 Green Product Award.   (If you have a product to enter for next year, go here).

The chair’s innovation is in the design of the back, which combines both mesh and fabric.  So, it’s a chair that’s good for the user’s back and the environment.

Breakout Areas

Viasit also make our meeting and conference chairs.  The meeting room chairs are a new release from Viasit and was a winning entry on the 2019 German Design Awards.  Our Viasit contract was handled in the UK by Office Chairs UK and James Reid there was a delight to deal with.

Our breakout sofas and coffee tables are by Hay – Scandinavian design, from Denmark.

And our kitchen chairs are by Vitra.  Vitra is Swiss but with probably the largest Clerkenwell showroom that we stumbled over.

Our UK supplier for Hay and Vitra products was CoExistance and Alex Reddicliffe there was great.

Racquets Court tables and desksMeeting Room Chairs

Our desks and meeting tables ARE British!  These are designed and made by Flexiform in Yorkshire.  Nick Saunders, Flexiform’s Sales and Marketing Director, was really helpful.

Our kitchen tables are Italian, by Plank – again supplied by CoExistance.

Racquets Court flooring

Carpeting is by Milliken – a US business which manufactures in the UK.  The carpet choice is frankly daunting!  And the choice is complicated by the fact that carpet is bought by the decibel.  In other words, we had to take a view on the sound insulation necessary in The Racquets Court – not easy in a building that had once been …. well, a racquets court.

Vinyl covering is by Polyflor – and it’s British.

Racquets Court Lighting

LightingVisitors to The Racquets Court invariably comment on the lighting – it’s ‘architectural’, designed to stand out and largely designed and made by Dorset based Dextra.

It’s not usual to find British lighting like this – often it’s Italian. We were thrilled to be able to source lighting from the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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19th February 2024

Essential Kit Every Remote Worker Needs in 2024

Remote working isn’t a new thing, but it has risen in popularity since the pandemic. Many businesses have embraced remote or hybrid working. This...

Read More >

6th February 2024

The Racquets Court Wins Award

The Racquets Court, a leading provider of innovative coworking solutions, is thrilled to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious title of “Best...

Read More >