The phrase ‘Levelling up’ was defined by the previous UK Conservative government as ‘a moral, social and economic programme for the whole of government’. In March 2024, the then chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced a £240 million levelling-up fund for an area including Canary Wharf in east London — the home of some of the world’s biggest, and richest, banks and offices.
Previously, in November 2023, two large investors in the global city-office sector announced significant changes to their financial health. First, Lord Alan Sugar, the star of the BBC reality series The Apprentice, announced that his holding company Amshold, the group through which he holds his London-based property investments, had made a loss of £29 million in the year up to June 2023 (compared to a £15 million pre-tax profit in 2022). Second, the coworking city-office space provider WeWork, which has its headquarters in New York, filed for bankruptcy. At its height, WeWork operated in 39 countries, with over 750 work-sharing locations worldwide. The US news network, ABC, described the demise of WeWork as being emblematic of the ‘excesses of business start-up culture’.
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