Work completes on property company’s flood hit offices

The £300,000 refurbishment of the lower ground floor of property sales and rentals business Morgans’ Dock Street office, which was submerged in more than five feet of water during the 2015 floods, has completed.

The basement project, which has been designed by Architecture 519, now boasts 2,000 sq ft of contemporary space, with a new kitchen, break out spaces, showers and boardroom.

Jonathan Morgan, managing director of Morgans, says: “Christmas of 2015 was a very difficult one for us, we lost all our break out space, our IT and comms room, but we managed to open our office within three hours of over 40 tonnes of water being pumped out of the building, and didn’t lose a single hour of trading time, which is something we were all very proud of.

“The flooding was unprecedented and came at a time when flood alleviation works were already underway. We will never know whether the works would have protected us had they been completed, and we have not stopped to dwell on that. Having spent considerable time liaising with the Environment Agency, we are confident that the major works which have been carried out along the River Aire through the centre of Leeds will protect us in future.

“Before the flood our basement area housed the kitchen, staff bar, lounge, bathrooms, stationery stores, archive, air conditioning plant and communications room, which were all destroyed. We have moved some of our equipment upstairs and are delighted with the new space which is already proving extremely popular with our team.”