The letting of just under 60,000 sq ft to the Law Society at the Cube saved Birmingham from a significantly below par year in terms of office lettings, according to one of the city’s toip agents.

However, Philippa Pickavance, head of agency at Drivers Jonas Deloitte Birmingham, said that despite what has felt like a year of toil for the agency community with little reward, the overall numbers could have been a lot worse.

“Despite what felt like a difficult letting year in the central Birmingham office market, take up figures for 2011 were almost exactly the same as for 2010, at 669,798 sq ft and in the exact same number of deals, at 141.

“Once again the market was split between a fewer number of larger deals with only 10 over 20,000 sq ft, but those accounted for 45.7 per cent of take up.

“There were then many more smaller deals, with 92 under 3,000 sq ft, but they only accounted for a total of 128,626 sq ft or 19.2 per cent of the total take up. It could have been a different picture if the largest deal we have seen all year had not completed just before Christmas, the 57,000 sq ft letting to the Law Society at The Cube, figures would have been some of the lowest for a number of years. The average take up over the past 10 years runs at 730,000 sq ft per annum.”

The Law Society deal accounted for 8.5 per cent of the annual take up in 2011. Other larger space takers this year included Network Rail, Mo J and the NHS, however all these were on Grade B stock at rents in the low teens.