The ‘Campus’ in Tech City will offer work stations, events space and relaxation areas.

Search engine giant Google has announced it will open a new communal workspace for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs in East London within weeks.

Close to Silicon Roundabout, the seven storey building in Shoreditch will offer office space, relaxation areas, events space and meeting rooms to a range of online firms. The California-based firm acquired the property at 4-5 Bonhill Street, which is set to be known as the ‘Campus’ back in September last year on a 10 year lease.

Plans for the “entrepreneur community” are thought to include 200 desks, table football tables and small wooden booths for more sensitive projects. In additon to offering work space to external companies, it’s believed the search company will also have staff present within the building to give tips and advice to budding businessmen.

Commenting on the new “internet university”, Google said in a statment: “In the coming weeks, Google, working with a number of partners, will officially open Campus – Silicon Roundabout’s largest co-working space and entrepreneur community. East London’s Tech City is already home to hundreds of world-leading developers, entrepreneurs and ideas.”

“It is rapidly developing into an exciting centre for tech startups. Campus’ goal is to fuel the success of the UK startup community. Let’s fill this town with startups…”

Letting prices have not yet been announced for the 250,000 sq ft Campus which is expected to open in March, however interested firms are being encouraged to register at the Google’s Campus London website.

The plans to move to 25 Victoria Street have been severely criticised by the Welsh Conservatives.

The Welsh Government has been accused of “empire-building at the taxpayers’ expense” after announcing plans to relocate to a new London base.

The government plan to move out of its office in the Wales Office and into new office space at 25 Victoria Street – a move which could cost around £270,000. The proposals have been strongly criticised by the Welsh Conservatives who believe the relocation would be an unnecessary expense.

Despite already having space at Gwydyr House and an office at Portland House, the government wants to leave these two locations and use the new space on Victoria Street to “promote international trade and investment opportunities; continue and develop relationships and visibility with the UK Government, embassies and other important organisations and public bodies; and provide a hot desk base for ministers and officials on official business.”

A Whitehouse source has warned that the leasing of separate property could send out a negative message.

They said: “I do think potential investors in Wales will say, ‘Hang on a minute – why aren’t the two governments representing Wales working together?’. And it’s not from lack of trying on our part.

“They have got this room which they pay a small rent for which was negotiated by the previous government. I don’t see any sense in them wanting to change the arrangements now.”

The Conservative shadow minister for finance in the Welsh Assembly Paul Davies feels the move is unnecessary, saying he found it “extraordinary” that the Welsh Labour leaders have decided to lease some of the most expensive office space in Europe while the NHS budget is being cut by 6.5% and schools are severely underfunded.

Overseas maiden investments accounted for a third of the total spend in the London office market in the last 12 months.

Foreign first-time buyers and investors are dominating the London office space market according to new research from the property group Knight Frank.

The figures show that foreign investors and cash-rich first time investors are fighting for a share of the market as they look to acquire stable assets in the current Eurozone crisis. According to Knight Frank, overseas investors making their debut investment in the London office space market accounted for about a third of the £9.1 billion spent in the market last year, while foreign investors accounted for about 60% of the overall investment into the market.

The announcement backs up last year’s figures which show that the majority of property in the City of London is now owned by foreign investors and institutions.

Commenting on the figures, City investment partner at Knight Frank Stephen Cliffton said the majority of the interest has come from countries including Malaysia, South Korea, Russia and Hong Kong.

Significant purchases made in the London commercial property market last year included Permodalan Nasional Berhad‘s purchase of a 460,000 sq ft office complex in the City for £350 million and the purchase of the Aviva Tower for £280 million by a group of wealthy south-east Asian individuals.

Despite the current financial crisis, interest from foreign buyers seems to be continuing. This year has already seen the debut purchase of a block opposite the Bank of England for £70 million by Korea Investment Corp.

Commenting on the current foreign demand, director of capital markets at Jones Lang LaSalle James Beckham said: “A lot of these investors have surplus cash flow and are looking all over the world for places to reinvest. Other institutional investors are searching for assets that match their long-term liabilities.”

A South Korean credit union is close to purchasing office space in London as it looks to take advantage of the relatively inexpensive office market in the UK capital.

The Korean Teachers’ Credit Union is looking to purchase a 12 story commercial property in London as it aims to capitalise on the inexpensive commercial property scene currently in the UK.

It is believed that they could be joined by other Korean companies looking to invest in the London office market with a figure of £299 million being rumoured to take control of the building.

Negotiator Lee Kun Ho has refused to speculate about the particular office building in question as talks are at a delicate stage in the process however an announcement is expected sooner rather than later.

The credit union is aiming to increase the investments from overseas in order to nudge these investments closer towards the target of 6.8%, a 2.8% projected rise from January 2011.

Mr Lee said: “The price is still attractive enough for us to earn around 6 percent annually, and possibly further returns upon selling the building after a few years.

“A majority of our investment is still in financial assets, and we seek to diversify as bond yields are low and stock markets volatile. Asian investors with sufficient liquidity can seize the investment opportunity amid financial turmoil in Europe and the U.S.,” he added.

The KTU is not the only Korean enterprise which has been using the London office market in order to generate funds, Korea Investment Corp have already invested in London office space.

Globalisation of London is set to continue, experts predict.

Take up of offices in Central London fell by 27% last year, however a doubling of demand from the technology sector suggests that the longer term outlook may fare better than earlier predictions, according to Knight Frank.

The commercial property firm found that 1.3 million square feet of office space was taken up by IT and telecoms companies in 2011,  up from 640,000 square feet in 2010.  Some of these firms included Facebook, Groupon, Nokia, Apple and Expedia. However, a slowdown in demand was recorded among other industry sectors, such as finance.

Knight Frank’s Silicon London report also highlighted that demand from technology firms covered areas like Covent Garden, Clerkenwell and Fitzrovia as well as the main tech site in the Shoreditch and Old Street roundabout postcode.

James Roberts, head of commercial research, said: “The central London office market felt the impact of the global economic slowdown last year. However, if the recent rally for equity markets continues, I believe we could see office demand pick-up again by the summer. Plus there is this additional upside from the technology sector to give us confidence. If office demand from tech firms doubles during an economic slowdown, it will be interesting to see what happens when growth improves.”

John Snow, head of central London offices, was also optimistic about the future of the office industry in the capital: “That companies, like Apple, Google, and Facebook want to be in London over other European cities is a great vote of confidence in the capital. This is a time of huge change for London, with the foreign influence growing in both the leasing and investment market. London is a business friendly environment, which is the lure for overseas companies and investors. I expect this globalisation of London to continue.”

The reports comes after research revealed that there is an excess of grade C supply.

A report concerning the availability of serviced office space in London has shown that there is limited supply within the capital.

SME’s looking to move into office space in London are set to be left peeved by the lack of serviced business centres available to them.

The study by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) also illustrates the fact that there is a greater demand for serviced office space than their is supply in London and that many areas could run of space before the end of the year.

JLL predict that the rental prices for space in London will be below average however they do expect commercial property rents to increase by 1.7% nationwide in 2012, but areas with a shortage of serviced office space like the City of London and the West End are likely to see increases of approximately 3 and 3.5% respectively.

The West End is somewhere that seems to have a particular low supply, with JJL forecasting that the space currently available in the area could be taken up in eight months due to a surprising amount of demand but also a lack of development because of the economic climate.

This new report corresponds with previous research by Cushman & Wakefield which stated that they expected that there would be a critical shortage of high-quality space between 2011 and 2013. DTZ also said that the amount of grade C office space on supply exceeds that of grade A space.

Head of UK Research at DTZ, Martin Davis said: “Contrary to our expectations grade C has a lower availability rate than grade A and B stock.

“Nevertheless, we expect this position to deteriorate in the face of continued low economic growth and competition for occupiers from better quality space.”

The group were using the office space of a former bank as an ideas workshop.

The Occupy London protesters have been evicted from the office space they were inhabiting in the City.

The protesters were using disused space owned by Swiss bank UBS on Sun Street near Liverpool Street Station but police are said to have evicted around 50 of them from the building, labelled the ‘bank of ideas’, in the early hours of this morning.

The eviction came after UBS won a legal case against the group who then attempted to occupy a new site at Leadenhall Street which was once home to the now deceased Iraqi Rafidain Bank and the former site of Midland bank at St Alphage Highwalk, however they were again evicted by police.

The group also took over but later abandoned Roman House in Barbican amid fears that the contractors employed to strip asbestos from the building would lose their jobs.

Arrests were also made at the time of the evictions with one man being held on an alleged assault and criminal damage charge, it is believed that this is a bailiff who drove his car at the protesters after being questioned by a journalist.

A statement from Occupy London said: “As the events were scaling down, at around 4am, one of the bailiffs who was being asked by journalists about the lack of identification, assaulted a photographer by punching him in the face, then got into his car and drove straight into a number of protestors and media at speed.”

The movement took control of the office space in November of last year in protest against the banking sector and the governments response to the financial crisis. It was at this point that they turned the space of the former bank into the ‘bank of ideas’.

The building had been empty after it went into administration last year.

The survey places London tenth out of 27 European cities in terms of property investment.

So far London has remained in a positive position property-wise throughout the financial crisis, but is now said to be losing some of its appeal as people are more reluctant to invest as the UK is faced with the prospect of enduring a recession.

High prices are also said to be a deciding factor, seeing London drop down to tenth place in a ranking of 27 European cities according to a survey put together by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

In the survey last year London came first in terms of investment and fourth in terms of the performance of existing properties.

The current survey saw PwC ask more than 600 brokers, investors and money managers about the London property market where they stated that there was difficulty in getting hold of assets and there is a lot of strong competition as outlined in the PwC’s report for the Urban Land Institute.

The news comes after London had previously performed well in the property market being one of the first cities to start recovering after the global financial crisis where is rose in the second half of 2009 following two years of decline.

The report comes after reports in the latter part of 2011 from Development Securities Plc suggested that more than half of the offices in the City of London’s financial district are foreign-owned suggesting uncertainty and wariness in British investors.

Of the 27 cities discussed in the survey it is predicted that just one quarter of them will experience greater investment which includes London as well as Berlin, Hamburg, Istanbul, Munich, Moscow and Stockholm.

Developer Arab Investment has failed to secure enough pre-lets for the development.

City of London office space development the Pinnacle at Bishopsgate has experience another delay in construction amid funding issues.

Upon completion the story is set to be the tallest office space in the Financial District and will comprise of 64 storeys and be around 945 ft in height.

However, due to developer Arab Investments being unable to secure enough pre-lets for the space, building by Brookfield Construction has stopped. As it currently stands the skyscraper is just seven storeys tall an indication that the building is just 11% complete with this being the second time work has ceased on the property.

Work first stopped last year but began again in September after Arab secured £500m of funding from lenders including HSH Nordbank and HSBC leaving Arab to secure pre-lets to keep construction going, however only around 10% of the building has been reportedly let.

A Reuters source said: “About a week ago building work stopped.

“The bottom line is that the Pinnacle will need looking at from a funding point of view or a sizeable pre-let which is difficult in this market.”

It has not yet been stated when work is expected to continue on the building as the current economic climate has left many businesses reluctant to tie themselves to a pre-let due to financial uncertainty as the economy may get worse. Developers have found difficulty in securing tenants in the recent months because of this to maintain their developing projects, just recently the construction of a skyscraper was delayed in Shoreditch after a pre-let tenant pulled out.

A joint venture between Aerium and Terrace Hill will see two 1960′s properties be transformed into grade A space.

Planning has been secured for the re-development of prime office space in Mayfair by a joint venture.

Terrace Hill and Aerium have collaborated to revamp 49-51 Conduit Street and 24 Saville Row after acquiring the property from Prupim last year.

The scheme will see the venture transform the two dated 1960′s blocks into one six storey building providing 22,500 sq ft of grade A office space and 9000 sq ft for retail opportunities that will span the basement and ground floors.

The venture between developer Terrace Hill and European real estate fund manager Aerium is hoped to make up for some of the lack of prime office space in the West End and they anticipate demand from both potential tenants and retailers for the highly desired area of Mayfair.

Aerium’s UK Fund Manager, Robin Carr said: “This is one of three Central London schemes we are currently undergoing as part of more opportunistic strategy.

“With a shortage of high quality office space both in terms of current supply and that forecast to come to the market, we believe that this well located, prime Mayfair property has the potential to take advantage of strong occupier demand when it is delivered onto the market.”

Work is expected to begin in the spring with the aim of having the project completed by the summer of 2013.

Development Director of Terrace Hill, Rob Lane said: “We are delighted to have secured consent for this flagship scheme. Having worked hard with our architects, the Council and local stakeholders, we feel confident that our redevelopment plans not only complement but exemplify the properties’ existing surroundings, fronting the highly sought after locations of both Conduit Street and Savile Row.

“Using our depth of in-house development and project management capabilities and benefitting from the expertise of our investment partner, we hope to deliver a high quality, attractive office scheme to the market in 2013, when we are set to benefit from a favourable supply, demand dynamic.”