There’s more to London than trendy postcodes

With regard to your piece on business rent (News Analysis, DW 13 December), I have to ask the question, what is this obsession with having to work in central London?

I read the following with astonishment: ‘Many creative groups in the centre of London pay rents of about £540 per m2’. Who? How? Why?

In an age of e-mail and pdf proofs (not to mention Skype and the like), why are design groups so worried about being ‘up West’? There’s no practical reason for it any more – it’s dirty, expensive, and crowded; the people are rude and aggressive and the cafés and bars are full of angry suits and self-regarding creatives (maybe that’s a pull, for some).

Surely, as long as we can get to a meeting within a reasonable time, we can be based anywhere that’s accessible by our team.

We’ve been based in south-east London since fax machines and overnight bureau run-outs provided the timetable to our day; now that we do everything by e-mail we’ve been able to move to leafy Greenwich (pictured) and buy three times as much studio space as we could have had before, even in Shoreditch.

Of course, more adventurous types might even consider other locations – there is life beyond the capital.

Michael Smith, Director, Cog Design, London SE10

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