The northern Home Counties consist of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Berkshire, and Middlesex. Thanks to their proximity to London, many towns and villages in the northern Home Counties are located on the London Commuter Belt.
The flow of people, goods, and services has resulted in high levels of investment in the northern home counties. Consequently, many cities in the home counties have themselves become commercial centres. and there is an increasingly popular demand for companies seeking to rent office space in the areas.
Once such example is Reading, in Berkshire. Although located on the London commuter belt, it is an important commercial centre in its own right. In recent years Reading has become a hot spot for technology companies. Microsoft, Oracle, and the BG Group are all major international companies with head offices in Reading.
As office space in London has become increasingly expensive due to high demand, office developers have been busy in the home counties.
By combining lower rents with easy access to London, business parks have proved to be very popular. Thames Valley Park, for instance, is located in Berkshire, and designed for companies in the hi-tech industry.
Fujitsu, Microsoft Jive Software, and Websense are some of the companies that have offices in this Berkshire business park. Westcott Venture Park, in Buckinghamshire, provides office space between 120 sq ft and 30,000 sq ft.
The park also provides a café, a shop, meeting rooms, and a driver's rest room all in one convenient location. As London expands over the next few years, increasing pressures on real estate, the home counties are set to become ever more attractive as a business destination.