Giving office spaces a spring clean and adding a few potted plants can make them a whole lot more homely.
In fact, just last week Master Sarah McAllister, director of Feng Shui Agency & School of Chue Feng Shui, claimed that carefully arranging serviced office space furniture can dramatically reduce the detrimental impact of highly pressurised work environments.
But communities secretary Eric Pickles wants to go a step further when it comes to making office spaces more welcoming. He wants to turn empty offices into homes.
He claims that 250,000 new homes could be created from empty office spaces – saving some £140 million in planning costs.
This would be a dramatic increase on the 2.8 per cent of new homes that were created from former serviced office spaces.
A source from Whitehall said: “By unshackling developers from a legacy of bureaucratic planning, we can help them turn thousands of vacant commercial properties into enough new homes to jump-start housing supply and help get the economy back on track.”
