The Union Carriage Works is currently being converted into loft apartments by Etc Urban Developments. The ground floor departments have been put up for sale as commercial office space, with the hope that a buyer will see the opportunity for its own custom office space. 

 

The developers already have permission for the space to be used as restaurant space, but they believe that the demand for office space will prove more fruitful. 

 

Neil Thornton, the director of Etc Urban, said: "We’ve considered various ideas for the ground floor of The Union Carriage Works and it will suit a variety of uses from restaurant, to retail to office or gallery space.

 

"The lack of any grade A office accommodation in Preston city centre strongly suggests there is a pent up demand for it right now and we know of several professional service companies who are actively looking to purchase their own offices.

 

"There are not many opportunities to buy a genuine piece of Preston’s industrial past – in such a fantastic location – with a lot of history and turn it into your own bespoke space."

 

Charles Bell of Morgan Martin, who is selling the ground floor space, added: "The ground floor offers self-contained accommodation which will benefit from new full height shopfronts and entrance doors, exposed timber floor boards and brick works internally with acoustic board ceiling.

 

"This blank canvas gives a purchaser an unusual opportunity to fit out the accommodation to their own specification."

 

Source: Insider North West

 

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Building or designing new premises is an ideal time to assess your time and attendance policies. If, like so many businesses, you are using an old out of date system then you can update it in the new building as you go rather than having to take the old one out. 

 

Examples of out of date systems are systems which rely on punch cards or swipe cards, or worse that don’t rely on any mechanical method and instead just use paper timesheets. 

 

Our clocking system is very easy to use. Users merely need to wave their radio-frequency smart-cards near to the reader (or put their fingerprint in the scanner if they have chosen the biometric method) and their clocking timings are sent straight away to our central system. 

 

Not only is it simple from the user end, it is also very labour-light for managers who have had to check and approve all employee hours. There is no need to gather timesheets or create complicated Excel spreadsheets. Our WinTA time and attendance system can export all clocking data in a format suitable for all leading payroll programs.