The Creating Excellence Briefing - Live Work Network

LIVE/WORK accommodation has rapidly made its mark as a new property type in recent years - o­ne that combines workspace and home all in one.

The first properties designed and marketed under the live/work brand began to come o­nto the market in the 1990s, notably in Hackney and Tower Hamlets in London.

Now the south west in seeing a growing interest in live/work development. Urban Splash, developers usually associated with flagship urban renaissance projects in the north are developing Royal William Yard in Plymouth. The next phase is likely to include live/work units designed by architects Acanthus.

Devon and Cornwall Housing Association are pioneering affordable live/work at Gunnislake and St Austell. East Dorset Housing Association have created flexible 'lifetime' homes in Dorset that incorporate workspace - and are looking to develop live/work in Poole and Bournemouth. Commercial developers Pound and Company are proposing a 25 unit live/work business park in Penryn, Cornwall. And specialist rural live/work developers such as Brockhall Village Ltd are actively seeking sites for major rural entrepreneur settlements in Cornwall www.brockhallvillage.co.uk

These are just a selection of a growing list of live/work projects in the region, which looks well placed to become a live/work hotspot, for a number of reasons:

• high house prices are making it harder than ever for businesses to afford a separate workspace and home. Live/work combines both costs all in o­ne
• lack of quality wired office space in some areas - people are increasingly doing it themselves, creating wifi zones in their homes
• quality of life - if you can run your home based business from anywhere because of ICT, why not the south west?
• census figures show very high levels of self employment and home working in parts of the south west - 'live/workers' are here already but are hidden from view, using normal residential property to run businesses
• geographical remoteness - businesses, particularly in Cornwall, are remote from centres of economic activity. Home based business can rely heavily here o­n web based business - selling to the world and downloading wealth to the region
• creative buzz - parts of Cornwall and places like Poole increasingly offer a haven for self-employed creative/knowledge/IT businesses, natural live/workers
• networks are strong to support such businesses [see Digital Peninsula Network case study]
• long commutes - many south west business people have to travel further than their counterparts in other regions, to commute and to get to clients. Basing work at home can reduce this