Green Space

The new office is – it has to be said – a far better environment than the old place in Bracknell. We’ve been here a week now, and while it does have niggles, it’s not too bad at all. Well, I’ve worked in infinitely worse!

One niggle that does bug me though is that while there’s plenty of office space in this estate, there’s little to no green space. It’s almost like the decision was made to maximise the number of rentable offices, but to completely forget about the people working within them.

I’ve seen offices based in nice settings, with areas where people can go to sit and take a break at lunchtime – and I think it’s something that’s important to do. Here there’s nothing like that, you can go and sit on a couple of greenish bits right by the busy road, but that’s hardly conducive to taking a break – well, unless you like exhaust fumes with your sandwich, of course. It seems to me that having some “out of office” space is a requirement, and one that should be included in most (if not all) office-park plans.

The other main niggle is the traffic. Come 5.30 (and, to a slightly lesser degree, 9.00 am) the road out of the park is rigid. Solid traffic. It’s just another sign that there was little to no planning or thought when realising the office-park concept here. But all the same, it’s still better than being based in Bracknell town centre.