Reply to post: In a neighbourhood near you...

Hey Brit taxpayers. You just spent £4m on Central London ‘innovation playground’

Warm Braw

In a neighbourhood near you...

... you will likely find a not-for-profit organisation that provides sustainably low-cost business space for start-ups on easy-in, easy-out terms.

Around every 10 years, an "initiative" will come along that builds expensive, high-spec office space in their catchment area and offers it at an unsustainably low initial rent to businesses in the fad-du-jour sector.

Businesses that want a swanky new office start to move, threatening the long-term viability of the otherwise sustainable incubator. And then the "initiative" comes to and end, the rents in the new office space are unaffordable and the project closes and the space gets turned over to solicitors or government agencies.

And the not-for-profit that has been clinging on in the meantime by reducing its maintenance budget and pruning its staff tries slowly to rebuild its small business support infrastructure.

A lack of "initiatives" would be widely welcomed by people who actually have some experience of helping start-ups get off the ground and grow.

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