All Year, We've Been Talking About What Citizens Do. This Week, We Find Out If We Meant It.

Since July, we’ve been having a conversation here in the weekly Community & Creator Notes.— I felt something shift. The conversation became real.

The Movement Is Already Moving

Roland Stanley at Dragon Coworking in Rochester called it what it is: an “extinction-level event.”

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is reclassifying coworking spaces across the country. One operator received a backdated bill for £400,000. Payable immediately.

Roland didn’t write a LinkedIn post and wait for applause. He picked up the phone. He’s secured a meeting with his MP, @Lauren Edwards, for next week.

Karen Tait at The Residence Coworking Bishops Stortford went further. She met with Jane Sartin from the Flexible Space Association and Josh Dean MP this week to agree a plan of action.

Her words: “We support thousands of small businesses who are the engine of local economies. This isn’t the time to pull the rug out from under them, or me.”

Ewan Buck at Contingent Works is pushing for systemic reform: “Giving serviced offices a different multiplier instead of separating spaces out would simplify the system, save everyone the admin, and level out the field.”

This is what we’ve been talking about all year. Small, consistent action. One email. One meeting. One step.

It’s happening.

Why This Is Personal

I have to tell you why this matters so much to me.

My whole career has been championing freelancers, micro and small businesses. I worked for big companies and chains in catering and hospitality after catering college. Then I worked in restaurants, nightclubs and events.

And all the best places I worked were owner-managed places, and I enjoyed the constant underdog solidarity of being ‘up against the big boys’ that came with the territory. I loved knowing everyone who worked in the company.

Twenty years ago, I ran networking groups. Then in 2010, I discovered coworking and fell in love with it. Not because of the desks. Because of who was sitting at them.

I was part of a freelancer Meetup called KindredHQ. We met in a different coworking space every weekday. That’s how I got to know so many coworking space owners in London.

We met at the first-ever DeskLodge | B Corp™, the first-ever Huckletree, the first-ever Mainyard Studios.

Also, places like the original Impact Hub in Islington, Centre For Creative Collaboration ‘C4CC’ in Kings Cross run by Lloyd Davis, Innovation Warehouse above Smithfields Market and the Microsoft pop-up in Arnold Circus and the legendary Third Door (Coworking & Nursery). Happy Days indeed; many of those connections last to this day, fifteen years later.

That’s how I experienced working with people day-to-day who were on the same journey as me — rather than sitting opposite them at a networking breakfast, exchanging business cards and never speaking again.

Every coworking space I walked into was where the freelancers were. The micro-businesses. The people building something real in a system that wasn’t designed for them.

Coworking cured the loneliness. It cut out the need for bullshit networking events. And as more spaces opened in neighbourhoods — not just city centres — more local connections became possible.

COVID accelerated that. More coworking spaces opened in neighbourhoods than ever before. Closer to where people actually live. Woven into communities.

That’s what’s under threat right now.

The Consumer Story Made Literal

Here’s what’s happening.

The VOA is using a Supreme Court case about ATMs in supermarkets — Cardtronics v Sykes (2020) — to reclassify coworking spaces.

Their argument: because a coworking operator provides the WiFi, the cleaning, holds a master key, the operator has “Paramount Control” over each unit. Therefore, the person renting that office isn’t a proper tenant.

They’re legally arguing that a startup founder, a freelance designer, a three-person agency building their first product, is equivalent to a cash machine.

Not a citizen. Not a business. A vending machine.

I wish I were exaggerating. This is actual government policy.

The result: fifty small businesses that would each qualify for Small Business Rate Relief (paying £0) get merged into one massive bill. Payable by the operator. Often backdated to April 2023.

It’s administratively convenient to treat 50 humans as a single line item. That’s the logic we’re up against.

We’ve talked all year about the Consumer Story — the narrative that treats humans as units to be managed and monetised. This is that story made literal. Written into tax policy.

And if this feels familiar, it should. This is the same pattern we saw with IR35 — policy designed without understanding how people actually work, crushing the people it claims to serve.

Follow The Money

All week, I’ve been thinking, if coworking is losing out, who benefits?

So let’s look.

Film Studios — The Chancellor just handed them a 40% tax cut on business rates. Guaranteed until 2034. A decade of relief for facilities often owned by Disney, Netflix, and other multinationals.

Online Giants — The government formally dropped plans for an Online Sales Tax. This was specifically designed to rebalance the burden between high street businesses (high rates) and online giants (low rates). By scrapping it, the Treasury shielded companies like Amazon from targeted taxation.

Investment Zones and Freeports — Businesses in designated zones can get 100% business rates relief for five years. These zones typically attract large-scale manufacturing, logistics, and corporate headquarters — not the micro-businesses and freelancers who use local coworking spaces.

Empty Buildings — A coworking operator filling a building with working humans pays immediately. A landlord leaving a building empty gets a three-month holiday.

Meanwhile, a coworking space incubating hundreds of small businesses gets backdated bills and aggressive enforcement.

The state is giving tax breaks to big business while taxing the spaces that grow small ones.

• That’s not an accident.
• That’s a choice.

“Small businesses are the backbone of the economy” is something politicians say when they need votes. The rest of the time, policy is written for the businesses that have lobbyists in the room.

Jane Sartin Has Been Doing This Work For Years

I’ve got to let you know.

This campaign didn’t start this week. Jane Sartin, Executive Director of the Flexible Space Association, has been fighting this battle since before 2023. The VOA tried this once before. The industry pushed back. Changes were made.

Now they’re trying again.

Jane isn’t posting about disruption on LinkedIn. She’s in the meetings. She met with Sadiq Khan on August 28th, specifically about this issue. She has a meeting with the relevant Minister in the diary.

If there’s one person the entire sector should be rallying behind right now, it’s her.

When she asks for letters to MPs, send letters. When she asks for stories, share stories. When she asks for solidarity, show up.

The Call-Out (Said With Love)

Every week on LinkedIn, I see posts about:

• “Community is everything.”
• “We’re not just desks, we’re movements.”
• “Challenging the status quo.”
• “We’re all about making an impact.”
• “Innovation at the bleeding edge.”
• And people B-Corp-ing all over each other.

Here’s the status quo. It just sent someone a £400,000 bill.

If those posts meant anything, now’s the time to prove it. Not next quarter. Not when it’s convenient. Now.

If you’re not sure where to start or what to do, jump into the LinkedIn Coworking Group and see what others are talking about. Don’t wait for permission. Get in contact with your peers.

This Isn’t Just About Operators

If you’re a freelancer, a creator, a micro-business owner — this affects you too.

The Small Business Rate Relief that made your office affordable? The VOA is removing it by reclassifying you out of existence.

Jon Trigg said: “Forget about us operators — they are removing tax relief for small and startup businesses by losing SBRR in tens of thousands of potential and existing assessments.”

The operator will have to pass the cost on or close.

Either way, the person who finally escaped the spare room, who found their people, who built something in a space that wasn’t a corporate chain — they’re the ones who pay.

If you use a coworking space, this affects you. If you care about your high street surviving, this affects you. If you believe local economies matter, this affects you.

The Maths and Your Local MP

For example, there are over 1,000 coworking spaces across London’s 32 boroughs.

If everyone wrote to their MP this month, that would be 30 letters per MP.

30 letters about the same issue. From local businesses. Employing local people. Supporting local economies.

That’s not noise. That’s a political force.

Most of London is Labour. Labour MPs need all the help they can get right now. This gives them something to champion — and a reason to listen.

One Step - The Monday Domino.

We’ve talked all year about the Monday Domino. The smallest action that creates momentum.

Here’s yours.

• If you run a space: Contact your MP. Use the FlexSA toolkit. Tell your local story. Invite them to visit. Let Jane Sartin know what happens so she can coordinate.
• If you’re a member of a space: Ask your operator how this affects them. Offer to write to your MP too. Your voice matters.
• If you’re not directly affected: Write anyway. In the unlikely event these changes don’t touch your business, supporting your community when it costs you nothing is what citizens do.

Find your MP here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

One email. One story. One step.

What Happens Next

Roland’s meeting with his MP is next week. I’m recording a Coworking Values Podcast conversation with him tomorrow — we were going to talk about how he and his team make Dragon Coworking such an integral part of Rochester’s local business scene. Now we’ll be talking about business rates too.

Karen has already started the conversation with her MP. Jane has the Minister’s attention and the Mayor’s ear.

The table is being set.

The question is whether the rest of us show up.

All year, we’ve been talking about what citizens do differently than consumers.

Citizens don’t wait for someone else to fix it. They show up. They build what the state won’t.

Indy Johar said it: “Democracy will be born in the back streets and the back homes. It won’t be born in Westminster.“

Your coworking space IS the back street. Your members ARE the neighbours.

The infrastructure already exists. You’re sitting in it.

The cement takes time to dry. But it only dries if you pour it.

Bernie’s Picks

📺 ‘Your Workspace Is Under Attack’ — Watch the full breakdown of what the VOA is doing and why. In the LinkedIn Coworking Group.

📋 Email your MP Toolkit from FlexSA— Everything you need to contact your MP, including template letters. Get it here (free, direct-download).

🎙️ Coworking Values Podcast — This week’s conversation with Georgia Norton about childcare and coworking lands on December 17th. The pattern she found? The glossy, VC-backed experiments folded. The neighbourhood-scale operations survived. Listen here.

📅 Unreasonable Connection: December 17th — Our final gathering of 2025. Small-group conversation on preparing for January without burning out, and of course, business rates! RSVP here.

📅 London Event February 24th 2026 — 150 community builders. One day. No keynotes. The waitlist is shaping what we build together. Join the waitlist here.

Thank you for your time and attention today!

Bernie 💚🍉

Community is the key 🔑

P.S. If you’ve already contacted your MP — or you’re planning to — reply and let me know. Seeing the momentum builds momentum.