The Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils have terminated the lease of the office building in Milton Park. They say in a press release.
‘At the end of September, to significantly reduce unnecessary costs, we will be moving to some temporary office space in the Vale’s Abbey House building in the centre of Abingdon where we plan to stay for a couple of years while South Oxfordshire District Council completes the development of a new office building at Didcot Gateway.
We’ve been based at Milton Park since the summer of 2015, a few months after an arson attack at our headquarters at Crowmarsh Gifford, near Wallingford.
Most of the building in Abingdon is being leased by Oxfordshire County Council, but there is a small amount of available office space on the ground floor.’
The press release then explains why the move to Abingdon is temporary:
While Abbey House will be a suitable office location for the short term, over the longer term, the councils will need more collaboration and non-desk based space, in a more energy efficient building. This will help us meet our targets to become carbon neutral councils and will also help both councils to continue to improve our financial sustainability and offer the flexibility we need to recruit and retain staff in an increasingly challenging jobs market.
Does “non-desk based” mean “working from home”? Abbey House seemed perfectly fine; but then it was Milton Park, which meant that members of the general public were less likely to visit in person. Now AH is a “temporary” location. I am confused – but then I have been most of my life 😉
Most Vale and SODC staff now work from home for part of the week and in the offices for the other part. This means that the amount of desk space needed each working day is much lower than it used to be.
When staff are in the offices they are spending more of that time in meetings and working collabortively, so more space suitable for that is needed, which is what is meant by ‘non-desk’ space.
Handy though it may be for us to have them here, I suspect that not just the rest of the Vale, but all of South Oxfordshire wouldn’t agree! Sadly, Milton Park or Didcot are probably more logical for the area as a whole.
Let’s hope they find a long-term use for Abbey House though.
“reduce, reuse, recycle”; unless there’s a shiny new office building to be built.
Do as we say, not as we do….