Islington is one of the UK’s most unequal boroughs. Gentrification means that the costs of workspace is going up, pricing out some smaller local businesses. To counteract this trend, Islington Council decided to invest in a programme of securing longterm affordable workspace, that would provide employability and business growth opportunities.
We were already operating SPACE4 in Finsbury Park, but we didn’t have a secure long-term lease. In 2019 we successfully bid for the contract to operate Islington’s first Affordable Workspace. We continue to work in close partnership with Islington, to deliver workspace and support their strategic aims more widely.
SPACE4 is helping Islington to ensure affordable workspace by / delivering affordable workspace in Islington (by):
- Offering workspace on a sliding price scale, to attract all sorts of freelancers and small businesses. Though our roots are in technology, we have all sorts of businesses – we just want to be sure they’re delivering local and social benefits.
- Running a programme of training and events aimed at small businesses and individuals looking to improve their skills and employment opportunities. SPACE4 runs some of these, and we also work with partners, particularly Founders and Coders, to deliver even more.
- Supporting Islington to implement social value measuring across all of its Affordable Workspaces, in a way that workspace operators understand and relate to.
- Introducing Islington to businesses in SPACE4 and our wider network in order to provide commercial services.
The impact of our work so far has included:
- Our local economy is stronger. We generate in the region of £200k social value per quarter.
- Supporting numerous businesses to scale and remain sustainable by giving them free or low cost space and training. We’ve give out about £1000 worth of free workspace per quarter.
- New affordable workspace operators feel more confident starting out because we can tell them about how we operate, and how we measure social value.
- Businesses in SPACE4 have grown as we have introduced them to contract and training opportunities.