A warning about the "profound consequences" for transport in Dublin as a result of major office development in the suburbs is made in the latest office market review by agents Hamilton Osborne King.

The increasing trend towards office development in outer suburbs is likely to create complex inter-suburban commuting, which the agents say will create greater reliance on private transport and growing congestion in suburban areas. It warns the city will experience US-style commuter problems if the trend continues.

The growth of office development in peripheral areas is occurring because of massive demand for space and the record low levels of vacancy in the traditional office centres in the city and lack of development in city centre and dockland sites.

HOK reports that at the end of the first half of 1999, the vacancy rate in Dublin had fallen to 1.2 per cent.

Only a quarter of the take-up in Dublin during the year was in Dublin 2. Some 37 per cent of all space was taken up in suburban areas, excluding the Blackrock-Dun Laoghaire node.

HOK says there are now no areas of the city which are not experiencing acute shortages. The agents also report difficulties in predicting take-up for the rest of the year because of the industrial action in the construction industry over the first half of the year. Some 75 per cent of the two million sq ft of space due to be completed by the year's end is already pre-let.

The HOK report points to the major developments in peripheral suburbs including Parkwest, Gemini Plaza, Sandyford, Eastpoint Business Park and East Wall Road.

It says development in peripheral areas will become increasingly dominant and "this will obviously have profound consequences for the future location of office-based employment in the city and for transport planning".

"Failure to cluster peripheral office development into well-defined suburban nodes and to restrict them elsewhere in suburbia will make it virtually impossible for public transport systems to cater for the increasingly complex patterns of inter-suburban commuting which will emerge, reminiscent of American cities.

"As in the United States, ever-greater reliance will be placed on the private motor car and public policy will be obliged to respond in an increasingly costly manner to the inevitable demands for road building resulting from growing congestion on suburban routes."

Rental levels in the city rose during the year from £215 per square metre to £323 per square metre for prime space in Dublin 2. Rental levels in Blackrock-Dun Laoghaire reached £225 per square metre and £153 per square metre for new buildings in outer suburban areas.

Commenting on the record low vacancy rates, the report says: "While the traditional office core of Dublin 2 has been experiencing an acute shortage of office space for several years, these shortages have since become widespread and there are virtually no locations in the city which are not characterised by acute shortages."