YRPS Insight: Edition Eight - Flipbook - Page 19
ONE YEAR ON
GREY STREET
Michael Blake gives an overview of our
first year on Grey Street, Newcastle.
It has been a year since we moved our commercial
property office onto Grey Street, and what a strange year
it’s been! We only had four months of ‘business as usual’
before the country went into lockdown in March. Before
that, however, we were able to establish our commercial
property and planning teams on the first and second
floors of our new home at 23 Grey Street. This move has
raised the profile of the commercial department and
with the merging of the commercial and planning teams,
together with the appointment of Chris Dixon as business
development consultant, staff numbers at Newcastle have
increased to ten.
The office has remained open throughout the year, with
a core team who cannot work from home maintaining a
presence and being available to take all enquiries. the rest
of the staff have successfully worked from home. Property
management work is very busy at the moment, and there
are always issues to be addressed.
The market has remained remarkably buoyant in most
commercial sectors, and throughout the summer and
early autumn, we have progressed a high number of
sales and lettings. At times like this, agents need to
be imaginative and pro-active in their marketing and
negotiation approach. Whilst some of our competitors
have furloughed staff and/or gone down the redundancy
route, all our fee earning members of staff at Newcastle
have continued to work throughout the year, simply due
to the volume of ongoing and new instructions.
The company’s recent investment in IT has certainly paid
off. With our enhanced telephone systems, all surveyors
are contactable at all times wherever we are working, and
all staff have access to data and files remotely, via our
cloud-based document management software.
Throughout the year, all staff have kept in touch with each
other, with regular team meetings on video conferencing
platforms. These have also been used to great effect for
meetings with clients, and whilst it is always good to
meet in person, I believe when restrictions are lifted, we
will all continue to conduct many of our client meetings
by video conference link. This way of connecting has now
been extended to include social or business development
virtual meetings.
Newcastle city centre has understandably been quieter
this year, with COVID-19 restrictions in place, but Grey
Street remains at the core of the city’s commercial and
hospitality activities. This summer, we have seen the
implementation of phase one of the City Council’s plans
to improve the public realm of Grey Street, to transform
the street into a more people friendly area, with less traffic
and safer cycling, and to create pavement cafés and space
for social distancing.
A year to remember for many reasons. Despite restrictions,
we continue to offer our full range of commercial property
and planning services from our new home on Grey Street.
For more information about the services we offer, please
get in touch.
Michael Blake | michael.blake@youngsrps.com