Goodbye London; Hello West Kent!
In years past, the attraction and allure of working for a big name in London blinded most eyes. Now, those same eyes are waking up to a very different business world; a world in which so many of the previously more attractive opportunities have either moved out or dried up, the ever changing criteria for entry more difficult by the year. Some have merely died off through natural wastage, changing technology or changing markets and business methods.
Now, contemporary entrepreneurs are more likely to go it alone, cutting out the wretched and grossly expensive commute in favour of either working for a smaller, local concern or breathing life in to a start up.
Local History
The earliest records of local, serviced offices go back to the days of Regus and their, then, unique renting of individual office units of various size to businesses on a fully-inclusive basis. But where serviced offices are, and were, primarily about leading partitioned and separate lives, the contemporary co-working experience has shifted to one of learning, creating, mixing and increased transparency. That original way of working, and thinking, was alive and well [and expensive] and living by our shoulder in offices at Century House in Longfield Road, Calverley House in the centre of town and The Pantiles Chambers, all offering the ethos of solitude and separation, while missing out on an untapped market sitting right on their own doorstep.
Desk Renter Limited
Desk Renter Ltd started from humble beginnings, with two, small, shared office spaces in the heart of Tunbridge Wells, with just a dozen desks available for rent. The company has since grown ten-fold and manages one hundred and twenty desks spread over four locations. With a new office in Tonbridge, and many more planned, we intend to role out this business model deeper in to the county having seen an encouraging and familiar pattern of improvement in the working lives and environment of an impressive list of enthusiastic renters.
Simon says
The House is managed by Simon McArdle, who also runs his own, local, digital agency and a person who long harboured the notion of amalgamating the towns’ creative’s in a shared working space. This notion further stretched the original Regus ethos, minus the stigmatic issues of cost and comparative insularity. Manager, Simon, sums up, ”Shared working spaces offer so much more than conventional serviced offices, to individuals and small businesses. With the ability to actively network on a daily basis with like-minded businesses, sharing contacts and local knowledge, as well as benefitting from positive social interaction. This is definitely the way of the future”.
