Five records, each with its reader named

Our 486 leases drive rent billing, lender covenants and the half-yearly independent valuation, so I treat the lease abstract as the record and every other system as a copy that must reconcile to it. Each abstract holds chargeable area, the escalation schedule, rent-free and fit-out periods, lock-in, renewal options and the security deposit, with the clause reference beside every field. Finance reconciles billing to the abstracts each month and explains any difference before the close. Ahead of a valuation, my team gives the valuer a rent roll with its change log rather than a fresh export. I do not set rents, interpret a disputed clause or choose a valuation assumption; leasing, legal counsel and the valuer own those calls. My responsibility is that each of them begins from the same checkable lease.

Listed occupiers ask us for the energy and water consumed in the space they lease, because they disclose it in their Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports and their assurance providers then ask how it was produced. For years we apportioned shared chilled-water and common-area consumption by floor area and sent the result as consumption. Every statement now separates three categories: read at the occupier's own meter, read at a shared plant and apportioned by a stated method, and estimated. Each line carries its method and meter identifiers. Facilities owns the meters and their calibration schedule; my team owns the path from meter to statement. Where a figure is estimated, we say so, even when the occupier would prefer a tidier number for its own report.

On a typical weekday our office parks record about 41,000 turnstile entries and 6,500 visitor registrations, and almost none of those people have a contract with us. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 we answer for the personal data our access and visitor systems collect: a clear notice, collection limited to the stated purpose and erasure once that purpose is served. I run the programme with legal counsel and our head of security. In practice we ask visitors for a name, a phone number and a host, keep routine records for 90 days and place longer holds only against a logged security incident. Leasing and asset management receive footfall as aggregated counts by building and hour. Occupiers do not receive named entry logs of their employees from us.

In warehousing, the arguments that matter concern time: when a truck reached our gate, when it was given a dock and when it left. Our five parks record gate-in and gate-out at the boundary, while each occupier runs its own warehouse system inside its building. With each occupier I agree which timestamps we share, how often and for what purpose, and that agreement becomes a data-sharing schedule attached to the lease. The yard records help us plan truck parking, internal roads and additional docks before a renewal. They do not measure how productive an occupier's operation is, and I resist anyone using them as though they did. When an occupier's figure and ours differ, we compare where each clock starts before anyone calls either record wrong.

Leasing, finance, the valuers and the board each used to quote occupancy differently. I now report three measures side by side: area under signed lease, area fitted out and occupied, and area actually used on an average working day, the last drawn from aggregated turnstile counts. In March 2026 our office parks were 87 per cent leased, 81 per cent fitted out and occupied, and about 58 per cent used on a typical weekday. The first measure informs income and valuation, the second the recovery of operating costs and the third future demand and amenity planning. None of them is the true figure. The board asked me for one number; I gave it three, each with a sentence on what it is for, and the valuers now receive the same definitions.