Working from home will SINK the dream of Wall Street on Thames

When I walked around a deserted Canary Wharf, I realised working from home will SINK the dream of Wall Street on Thames, writes ROBERT HARDMAN

Whisper it softly, but this might be London’s best-kept secret. Here is a place with zero litter (let alone dog mess), every conceivable variety of bar and restaurant (indoor or outdoor), cleanish swimming and arguably the best transport links in the capital.

I spot a couple of dozen people lounging around on an immaculate lawn watching the Ashes on a couple of giant open-air screens. Should anyone feel thirsty, there are several bars surrounding this grassy plaza. If you prefer something smarter, you could adjourn to the terrace of The Ivy restaurant. For its namesake in London’s West End, you need to book long in advance. No reservations needed here.

If cricket’s not your thing, there is another giant screen down the road showing golf.

It is a sunny Thursday lunchtime at Canary Wharf, the busiest day of the week I am told by everyone who works here. So where is everyone? There are no queues in the sushi joints or the coffee shops. I walk past one of the most astonishing sights of all. Here is a fully operational post office with no one in it. You can actually go straight to the counter. I can’t remember the last time I went to the post office without having to do at least a zig if not also a zag of one those snake-shaped queue lines.

Those who would rather not watch sport during their lunch hour have plenty of waterside options. I drop in at the Henry Addington pub, a nice spot from which to watch the lunchtime swimmers cooling off in the dock below. I would have thought swimming in the brown-black waters of London’s East End was the fastest way to a dose of gastroenteritis. We are but a short walk from the stinky old River Thames, after all. But it turns out that the water in this dock comes from an underground spring, not from the river, and is tested all the time. ‘I’ve never been ill,’ says the chap running the bathing jetty.

It is a sunny Thursday lunchtime at Canary Wharf, the busiest day of the week I am told by everyone who works here. So where is everyone? There are no queues in the sushi joints or the coffee shops. I walk past one of the most astonishing sights of all. (Pictured Robert Hardman in Canary Wharf)

All of which makes life quite civilised for those who work in the tallest, shiniest monument to Margaret Thatcher’s passion for deregulation.

However, this easygoing atmosphere also raises awkward questions for the owners of this 128-acre chunk of prime London real estate — which accounts for around 10 per cent of the capital’s office space. If Thursday is, at least, moderately busy, Friday has more of a ghost town vibe.

Might high-rise Canary Wharf have simply grown too tall and too big for its own good? Does the capital still want a sky-high financial district in addition to the centuries-old City of London up the road? Some doomsters are suggesting the end is nigh for a place emblematic of a bygone age of huge dealing floors, shouty traders and big bank bonuses.

Older readers may remember the days when Harry Enfield played a brash TV wide-boy called Loadsamoney, the word Yuppie — young upwardly mobile professional — was part of everyday language and the City went through a deregulatory revolution called ‘the Big Bang’.

Mrs Thatcher was at her peak and saw a way of redeveloping the neglected, if not derelict, eight square miles of docks next to the City of London. Planning rules were set aside, tax breaks issued and the whole area became known as ‘Docklands’.

The most ambitious development was at West India Docks. There stood the old warehouses of Canary Wharf (once the transit point for goods from the Canary Islands). By the Nineties, it had its first skyscraper. By the turn of the century, with the Millennium Dome across the Thames at Greenwich, it was humming. A decade later, with the 2012 Olympics rejuvenating another swathe of the old East End, Canary Wharf looked like a mini-Manhattan. The building work never stopped.

Mrs Thatcher was at her peak and saw a way of redeveloping the neglected, if not derelict, eight square miles of docks next to the City of London. Planning rules were set aside, tax breaks issued and the whole area became known as ‘Docklands’

Then came double trouble. First, the post-Covid trend for working from home kicked in and shows little sign of abating. This has had a secondary effect with many big employers now downsizing to suit their reduced needs. Just a month ago, it was announced that one of the world’s biggest banks, HSBC, is planning to vacate its 45-floor Canary Wharf skyscraper when the current lease expires in 2027. This is a hammer blow because HSBC is not only shrinking but relocating — back to the City of London.

It’s hard not to spot its logo on the monster tower known as 8 Canada Square from whichever way you approach Canary Wharf. Pre-Covid, it used to house 8,000 staff across 1.7 million square feet.

Millions of viewers know it from the opening credits of The Apprentice as the camera swoops over the gleaming skyline of London E14. Designed by Sir Norman (now Lord) Foster, it is one of Britain’s tallest buildings (656ft high) and an unapologetic statement of global financial clout.

Now, though, it is less than half full and some of its staff are not sorry to be leaving. ‘I’d much rather be back in the City because it feels like the real world,’ says John, an HSBC worker having a beer after work in the Grandstand bar, next to the big lawn with the video screen. He says that some sections of HSBC are lucky to see the staff back in two days a week and that the whole place feels ‘weird’.

At the other end of the central cluster of skyscrapers on the quayside is another logo — that of Credit Suisse. Four months ago, the Swiss giant was swallowed up by its old rival UBS, meaning job cuts are almost inevitable here.

Another major tenant, law giant Clifford Chance, has also announced it is leaving. For the past 20 years, it has occupied a 32-storey, one million square foot skyscraper called 10 Upper Bank Street. It moved here to snuggle up to the big investment banks which once constituted its bread and butter.

Now, though, more deals are being done by the smaller private equity firms which like to hang out in luxurious town houses in Mayfair. So Clifford Chance is moving back to the City of London and a new office block just a third of the size of its Canary Wharf home.

Might high-rise Canary Wharf have simply grown too tall and too big for its own good? Does the capital still want a sky-high financial district in addition to the centuries-old City of London up the road?

Canary Wharf has never been a more attractive place to work. The recent opening of the £19 billion Elizabeth Line, in addition to the Jubilee Line and the Docklands Light Railway, mean you can get anywhere in Central London in under half an hour

One of its major rivals, Allen & Overy, has already left. Meanwhile, the U.S. law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has also announced it is relocating to the City next year. The list goes on.

The irony is that Canary Wharf has never been a more attractive place to work. The recent opening of the £19 billion Elizabeth Line, in addition to the Jubilee Line and the Docklands Light Railway, mean you can get anywhere in Central London in under half an hour. There are now direct links not just to London City Airport but also to Heathrow. Dozens of new restaurants and bars have opened, including prestige names such as Hawksmoor and Dishoom.

The owners are doing all they can to diversify away from financial services. A new life sciences complex is taking shape, with talk of rivalling Oxford and Cambridge.

Crucially, a giant new residential quarter called Wood Wharf is up and running, with 3,500 new residents and more on the way. They are served by retail malls which include a Waitrose, a John Lewis and a cinema. Hotels are popping up (including Britain’s tallest). All planned long before Covid.

The result is that what was, until recently, purely a vast office complex is now a futuristic city within a city, albeit a rather soulless one. The flats look tailor-made for a Premier League signing at nearby West Ham. Homely they ain’t.

This week’s announcement by Housing Secretary Michael Gove that more commercial premises should be turned into dwellings certainly poses interesting questions for Canary Wharf. 

‘Everything shuts at around ten in the evening, which doesn’t bother me. But you can now live and work here and never need to go anywhere else,’ says Irena, a banker from Poland who arrived here four years ago. She lives in a nearby tower block filled, she says, almost entirely by overseas staff.

Some doomsters are suggesting the end is nigh for a place emblematic of a bygone age of huge dealing floors, shouty traders and big bank bonuses 

Young staff and overseas workers are much more likely to say that they enjoy working here. Those in middle age and more senior positions are much more inclined to prefer the City

Young international recruits with good salaries, long hours and no ties in Britain find it’s convenient to be within walking distance of the office. But Brits find it harder to feel at home. 

‘I couldn’t think of anything worse than living here,’ says James, a banker in his 30s, enjoying an after-dinner pint in the Henry Addington pub. ‘It would be like living in a permanent business trip. I don’t blame HSBC for wanting to get out.’

The Canary Wharf Group (CWG), which owns the place, declines to discuss any of this. Its reluctance might be explained by its recent downgrade by Moody’s to what the ratings agency calls ‘a substantial credit risk’. Moody’s might be about to pile on even more pain by joining the exodus itself.

It currently employs 1,200 staff here but, two days ago, it emerged the agency has asked consultants to look for new premises a third of the size, quite possibly somewhere other than Canary Wharf.

A spokesman for CWG informs me I am not allowed to interview anyone on the street. The Mail photographer is told he needs to apply for an official permit to take photographs (which is granted).

The last time I encountered this sort of paranoia was in the Middle East, but then CWG is half-owned by the Qatar sovereign wealth fund, the other half belonging to a Canadian real estate empire.

However, there is as yet no law against striking up a conversation, even though workers are all very nervous about being identified.

Few think it is all over, though many predict Canary Wharf faces a tough future 

During a number of visits over the past couple of weeks, several things have become apparent: First, young staff and overseas workers are much more likely to say that they enjoy working here. Those in middle age and more senior positions are much more inclined to prefer the City.

Second, the American-run banks are being much tougher about ordering staff back to their desks. British bosses are softer.

Third, people say Canary Wharf is better now than pre-Covid.

I have come here partly for nostalgic reasons. In 1991, as a young journalist for the Daily Telegraph, I was among the first tenants in the first section to open in the first skyscraper at a new development called Canary Wharf. Still a wharf, it even had ships moored on it. There was one bar, the Cafe Brera (I am pleased to say it is still there). Then the developers went bust.

However, the new owners kept the faith and, pretty soon, more tenants meant more pubs and restaurants. The main problem was that you never felt you were in London. A journey into ‘town’ was still an expedition. I was in the building the night, in 1996, when the IRA blew up our previous building and all the glass in our tower, briefly, bent inwards and then out from the shockwave.

Yet the owners kept building upwards and the banks kept moving here, lured by cheaper rents than the City and the promise of better transport links. The Jubilee Line arrived in time for the opening of the Millennium Dome. I left as HSBC arrived. Finally, ‘the Wharf’ felt full.

At the end of one day, I spot a group of revellers in a floating motorised hot tub which is chugging around the docks while its occupants pop open another champagne bottle. Echoes of the ‘Loadsamoney’ era, except it all feels more of a last hurrah than a bright new dawn

The rise of home working during the pandemic has dramatically cut the number of daily commuters to Canary Wharf, leading many commentators to conclude it has ‘lost its appeal’

Now it’s another world. At the end of one day, I spot a group of revellers in a floating motorised hot tub which is chugging around the docks while its occupants pop open another champagne bottle. Echoes of the ‘Loadsamoney’ era, except it all feels more of a last hurrah than a bright new dawn.

Few think it is all over, though many predict Canary Wharf faces a tough future. ‘Since the pandemic, some of the banks have a lot more empty office space, so I think the feeling is many might relocate,’ says a Citibank vice-president who has worked here for nearly 20 years.

His bank, however, has no plans to leave and, being American, is starting to crack the whip on coming back to work, again. ‘We have a mandate to do so three or four times a week at a minimum.’

He says he is ‘very happy’ with Canary Wharf, especially now that the Elizabeth Line has given it fresh impetus. Transport for London give me some interesting figures, not least the fact that weekend traffic through all its stations here is up by 181 per cent versus pre-pandemic numbers.

In other words, the bankers may be moving out but the public likes coming in for some shopping and a bite. But will that be enough to keep the lights on in all these glass and steel behemoths? Or is Maggie’s Wall Street-on-Thames destined to become Canary Dwarf?

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