If You Ask Me – An Interview with unLTD Magazine

WAYNE FLETCHER,
FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR,
AUSTIN FLETCHER

What are the stand-out trends you see currently in your industry?

We have seen a rising interest in a number of our services, one area in particular being health and safety. This has been emphasised by the pandemic and, although we will see some of the COVID related services drop off as we start to ‘return to normal’, we expect a number of the trends to become the new normal and continue in demand.

COVID-compliant office space and distanced working practices are a hot topic now as businesses look to welcome more staff back to the office environment.

The residential sector seems to be running full steam ahead from what we have experienced, and we expect this will continue due to demand for housing and the release of land by local authorities for future developments.

Looking ahead, how do you see these trends developing and what are your predictions for the next big opportunities lying ahead for the property market?

Restructuring of office space and the introduction of COVID-compliant useable space will inevitably be a priority for those who are not yet compliant as we continue to live with the virus. Although the current working from home trend will continue indefinitely for some, there will still be a need for an office environment for a lot of businesses, albeit in some cases with a reduction in capacity involving a hot desk/flexible working environment or shared space approach.

We will no doubt see a shift in the way city centres are perceived and utilised going forward and this should create opportunity for regeneration and repurposing of existing buildings. A focus on improved health and wellbeing should encourage the creation of open green spaces in city centres and air quality upgrades to existing office spaces.

I expect the hospitality industry to make a resurgence – we have already seen several measures and incentives being put into place by the government and this, coupled with post lockdown public demand, will likely create a boom in the sector.

In the Sheffield City Region, what are the biggest trends and opportunities we should be looking out for locally?

Hospitality as noted previously, should start to bounce back and Fargate, in my opinion, is the prime location for the creation of a ‘hospitality hub’ in Sheffield’s centre. We have already seen some confidence from our clients in this sector with one of our projects recently starting on site on Fargate itself.

The restructuring of Sheffield city centre will continue to create opportunity and help the city ‘adapt to change’ regarding the way we work and how we use our city centres in the future.

We are starting to see more interest in the city for a variety of development opportunities which is an exciting prospect going forward.