Major northern cities will continue to capitalise on civil service relocations over the next five years, new figures have indicated.

Exclusive statistics from property consultant GVA Grimley reveal that Liverpool and Manchester are particularly well placed to benefit from the 15,000 civil service relocations announced in yesterday’s Budget 2010.

The figures show these are the only two cities to have received more than 1,000 new posts since 2004. Manchester has more prime floorspace available than any other major city, while Glasgow and Liverpool have most in the pipeline (see map at bottom of page).

The Ian Smith review on civil service relocations, which was published yesterday, highlights Manchester’s planned Mayfield site as an exemplary destination for civil service jobs from London.

Stephen Hollowood, head of Public Sector at GVA Grimley, says: “The North-East and North-West will feature strongly in the relocation process as these regions are inherently cheaper both in terms of property and employment. By focusing relocations on the less prosperous areas of the UK, we can start to use the process as a catalyst for regeneration and provision of high quality jobs.”

The report also suggests that in future new relocations should be grouped together with existing regional locations to create clusters. The review says this feeds into today’s Total Place report, in which the government says more property should be shared between agencies to bring down costs.

Other recommendations include:

• a more streamlined and tightly knit Whitehall centre, concentrated in a small number of long-term, fit for purpose buildings with sharing between Departments;
• activities which need to be close to London being located in areas with low rents and which can wider regeneration, in areas in London such as Thames Gateway and Stratford;
• Regional Ministers overseeing the estate strategies for future locations of government activity in their region.

To see how civil service relocations have so far affected your city, click a blue arrow below:

View in a larger map

• Smith to give clarity on civil service relocations
• Budget 2010: 15,000 more Whitehall jobs to move
• Southeast should benefit from 15,000 relocation plans, says Smith
• Budget 2010: report to help create “Whitehall of North”
• Ian Smith on Whitehall, Quangos, McCready and more…