Financial Times - Business Briefing

Financial Times - Business Briefing

Jonathan Moules

Workspace away from home

Telford is to host a couple of business centres, aimed at providing space to those who would otherwise have to run their companies from home.

The new Enterprise HQs will offer private meeting spaces, workspaces and wireless internet connections for mobile workers who need somewhere other than their living room or a coffee shop to run their business.

Sarah Bird, business and tourism manager at Telford and Shropshire Conferences, which is backing the new centres, said the idea was to help those who currently have to "run the gauntlet of noise, distraction and muffin crumbs in their keyboards" by having to work out of places such as Starbucks.

Running a business from home is increasingly popular, according to Enterpise Nation, and online support service for such companies.

It claims that there were 2.5m business operated from home last year, a rise of 16 per cent from 2007.