As for major companies moving out of London, I feel most would not,
for fear
of losing their 'competitive edge'.

Possibly years ago , but these days given most communications are
electronic
it shouldn't really matter. If a large company relocated to a perhaps
slightly
depressed region it could do wonders for the local economy plus it
would be
cheap to live in for the employees (at least initially) and would take
some pressure
off london. Unfortunately london like most big cities suffers from the
black hole
effect , the more people come in , the stronger the attractions to
others becomes
so they more in too and so forth until you end up with a nightmare like
Mexico
City or Tokyo which have the population of a medium sized country each.

B2003

Have we all forgotten the LOB (Location of Offices Bureau) and those
cute advertisements on London Subway trains?

During the Seventy's and early Eighties they helped companies leave
London. Indeed that is why Milton Keyes and the enlarged Basingstoke
exist.

By the late 1980s the LOB's role had changed. At that point they were
encouraging companies to move TO London.

One assumes the LOB was quietly put to sleep during the Thatcher years.

A.

On Mon, 9 May 2005 00:39:55 +0100, "Robin Mayes"
wrote:

As for major companies moving out of London, I feel most would not, for fear
of losing their 'competitive edge'.

There3 are a lot of insurance companies that moved out of London, to
places like Tunbridge Wells, Horsham, Bristol, etc, and many an
engineering company have moved away, to Crawley, Portsmouth, Brighton,
and so on.

The London Office syndrome is based on a fallacy.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

The London Office syndrome is based on a fallacy.

So the couple of million people who commute in daily in packed tubes &
buses and mile long tailbacks during the rush hour are all heading to
the
shops or to feed the pigeons?

B2003

I find it very sad that London's rail links are being allowed to decline
like this.

A good example being the commuter services into Waterloo, which are pretty
much at the limit of their capacity. The move to St Pancras of the Eurostar
terminal is a perfect opportunity to vastly improve services into Waterloo -
in the words of SWT:

"South West Trains... believes that it could eliminate almost all
overcrowding and sharply reduce delays if it was allowed to use the five
Eurostar platforms." (ok, they would say that, but there can be little doubt
that more platforms at Waterloo would be a Good Thing for rail users)

However the Department of Transport take a different view. Their
responsibility, they argue, is not to improve transport services, but to
raise as much money as possible in the short term by selling off the
railway's assets. From a DoT statement:

"The facilities at Waterloo and North Pole (the Eurostar maintenance depot,
which is also closing) represent significant assets and the department
requires that their future use achieves the best value for money."

So instead of much needed investment, we get a quick cash-grab, and rather
than providing us with an integrated transport policy the govt. gets to
raise a few hundred million that it can put towards something really useful,
like ID cards for everyone.

And once we get these much-needed offices and shops built on the railway's
land, how are people going to travel to them, anyway?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...557246,00.html

On Tue, 10 May 2005, Tim wrote:

So instead of much needed investment, we get a quick cash-grab, and
rather than providing us with an integrated transport policy the govt.
gets to raise a few hundred million that it can put towards something
really useful, like ID cards for everyone.

Oh GOOD GOD that is sickening! It's not often you get to combine passing
up an opportunity to dramatically improve a great swathe of rail services
with the probable destruction of a beautiful landmark building!

It's almost enough to make me write to my MP. Maybe we could get the
Grimshaw station building listed? That might scupper the *******s.

One question, though; SWT says "the quarter-mile-long platforms would
allow it to add carriages to its services to Portsmouth, Bournemouth,
Southampton, Weymouth and Winchester.". Do the stations on those lines
(the ones that would be served by these services, anyway) have
sufficiently long platforms themselves?

tom

--
LEDERHOSEN IS NOT EDIBLE

Tim wrote:
I find it very sad that London's rail links are being allowed to
decline like this.

A good example being the commuter services into Waterloo, which are
pretty much at the limit of their capacity. The move to St Pancras
of the Eurostar terminal is a perfect opportunity to vastly improve
services into Waterloo - in the words of SWT:

"South West Trains... believes that it could eliminate almost all
overcrowding and sharply reduce delays if it was allowed to use the
five Eurostar platforms." (ok, they would say that, but there can be
little doubt that more platforms at Waterloo would be a Good Thing
for rail users)

However the Department of Transport take a different view. Their
responsibility, they argue, is not to improve transport services, but
to raise as much money as possible in the short term by selling off
the railway's assets. From a DoT statement:

"The facilities at Waterloo and North Pole (the Eurostar maintenance
depot, which is also closing) represent significant assets and the
department requires that their future use achieves the best value for
money."

So instead of much needed investment, we get a quick cash-grab, and
rather than providing us with an integrated transport policy the
govt. gets to raise a few hundred million that it can put towards
something really useful, like ID cards for everyone.

And once we get these much-needed offices and shops built on the
railway's land, how are people going to travel to them, anyway?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...557246,00.html

You're reading something that isn't there. Achieving best value for money
does not mean selling them off. It does mean putting them to the most
effective use.

On 10 May 2005 01:32:07 -0700, "Boltar"
wrote:

The London Office syndrome is based on a fallacy.

So the couple of million people who commute in daily in packed tubes &
buses and mile long tailbacks during the rush hour are all heading to
the
shops or to feed the pigeons?

No, they are victims of the fallacy, that it is essential for
companies to have offices in London, so that they are close to the
seat of government, and other influential bodies.

Another misconception is that foreigners will not visit you unless you
have an office in London.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

On Sun, 08 May 2005 08:51:51 GMT, Neil Williams wrote:

I've long said there should be serious tax breaks for companies
relocating their HQs out of London to other cities

Why? The economic case is already quite beneficial with all the London
Weighting that's saved. The company I used to work for built a prestige
HQ 50 miles out, and the LW savings paid for it in 8 years. (Probably 7,
actually, if the annual increases which would have happened but didn't
are allowed for).

For tax breaks to compare, I think they would have to be terminally
serious in some cases ;-)

--
A bit unusual: http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p13145898.html
(A panoramic 5-megapixel view of Wimbledon Depot Open Day, 1991)

Tom Anderson wrote:
One question, though; SWT says "the quarter-mile-long platforms would
allow it to add carriages to its services to Portsmouth, Bournemouth,
Southampton, Weymouth and Winchester.". Do the stations on those lines
(the ones that would be served by these services, anyway) have
sufficiently long platforms themselves?

Yup... In the 70s and 80s Southern Region used to run 12 car trains
to (from memory) Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton,
Brockenhurst, Bournemouth and Weymouth. They also used to stop at
a few intermediate stations which had only 8 car platforms (eg
New Milton).

Pete.