Colbea Central Colchester Business Centre - Meeting Rooms | Office Space | Virtual Office - Colchester

Iona Hodgson

Since doing the business course for women at Colbea earlier this year, they have been a continued support and resource. The course was well structured, well executed and very helpful. The teachers on the course, as well as the staff at the centre, have been generous with their guidance and advice and continue to be mentors for me in my business ventures. Thank you all. Success if built together!

Scott Cook

We are leaving Colbea in Severalls North Colchester after 6 month due to relocation however the time we have spent in here has been a pleasure. Great space for the cost, very welcoming and pleasant staff, particularly Liz and Craig, parking never an issue, great 24hr access, clean premises, polite "tenants", great courses on offer at low cost. As a new business it has delivered everything we wanted. I am sad to be moving on and if we were staying in Colchester I would be staying with Colbea.
Thanks to the team.

Sally Mays

Had an appointment with James Cracknell today.
He gave me some very valuable and practical advice on marketing my new businesses and made me think about things from a fresh perspective.

He also empowered me to keep focused on the things that I really need to do to promote my business and how to target the appropriate audience.

Thanks James

Katrina Wade

I do not know where to begin with regards to giving a rating for Colbea. If there was a hundred star rating I would give it. We started our business 7 years ago and it would not have happened if not for Colbea. I attended the most amazing starting up in business course and I would highly recommend any of their courses. The staff are all extremely knowledgeable and very passionate about their work and their clients. During the awful time we are now experiencing with Covid-19 we are at risk of losing our business. James Cracknell reached out to us as he has worked with us on and off over the past 7 years. He has been an absolute life saver with regards to putting time and effort into helping us. You can see that he is passionate about helping small businesses and that is what Colbea is about.

I was quite upset to read the one star review further down as although I do not know all the facts I do know Colbea and I do know many businesses that have offices with them. Their courses are brilliant and never overpriced and the knowledge they have is second to none.

Once again Colbea thank you, especially James, Bodyworks Physiotherapy Clinic would not be here without you, and hopefully will continue to be here because of you.

Deri Purll

I have had a few dealings Colbea, specifically with Liz Bourne and she is excellent. Very professional and is more than happy to help with any query no matter how big or small. I cannot recommend her enough!

Caan B

WARNING: Read before becoming a tenant at Colbea Business Centre.

We rented an office at the Business Centre for just under two years. I would strongly recommend you look elsewhere if you require an office.

Here is a factual account of our experience:

- Rent was increased twice (over 20% increase)
- On exit, we were unfairly billed a month later (explained in full below)
- Consistent email spam of courses & accountants (affiliate linked)
- The spam could not deliver the goods they promised (explained below)
- Parking disputes are regular, you will be fined on the road outside
- Electric gates regularly break, meaning you are forced to park outside
- Provision of internet services was intermittent, taking weeks to get a response.
- Internal noise makes the place unprofessional - kids running and screaming in the corridor & 'dressmaking' etc.
- The YMCA opposite regularly problematic (fights/junkies/excessive noise)

Having spoken to 4 different tenants (1 has already left) before leaving, all are unhappy. Also, 2 staff existing members indicated to me they are unhappy with changes before I left.

New management created many changes since moving in. The most notable being to charge for many things that were previously free, and also charge more for existing features.

This is also reflective of the redecoration and 'branding' created. This would be fine, except tenants are unfairly forced to pay for it. On leaving we were contacted 2 weeks later (still waiting for our deposit back) to inform us we were to pay for a full re-paint and carpet cleaner for the office. When asked, we received photo's of the office a full month after leaving out (added below) you make your mind up. When leaving we approached staff about handing the office over, but they did not want to check...

Does it require a £380 makeover? I disagreed, the money was taken anyway.

Note: the office was in this state when moving in.

This is not the first time they have done this though. Two other previous tenants have had the same experience. One of which was billed for re-decoration when moving to a larger office inside the same building.

'Courses' Offered by Colbea Business Centre:

During the time at Colbea, we were routinely spammed physically with paper materials and emails about courses they would run. Most of which were overpriced. When asked to be removed from the marketing email list, we were told there were not seprate lists and this could not be done. Despite being against GDPR, the centre manager was not interested. We requested to be removed altogether. However, we still received the unsolicited spam.

Note: the courses they sell do not do what they state. For example, would you like to pay hundreds of pounds to attend a marketing and SEO course from a company that has no search engine traffic? If you do, try on of their courses run by itseeze. The only thing being easy is the ripoff that ensues. See the analytics image attached.

Parking was a pain, there aren't enough spaces and the business centre does very little to ensure offices follow the allocation. The gates break weekly sometimes locking you out, this is a problem with the road being permitted and double yellow lined.

Noise is an issue if you are expecting a professional environment. Next to office 18 has a dressmaker which can be very noisy with the sewing machine. Further down the corridor, there is a languages academy, those who work there are lovely but during peak times you will have groups of children hanging around in the corridors running up and down shouting and occasionally flooding the toilets.

Aside from this, some of the staff are lovely - even if they aren't satisfied with their jobs. To me, this is also explanatory of the high churn rate amongst staff.

I wouldn't usually leave a review like this, excluding the occasional extreme case but, the attitude on leaving Colbea Business Centre forced it.

Ollie Cerisola

Mandeep was really helpful. He helped me write my business plan from start to finish. would definitely recommend.

Brook UK

Plenty of free business advice and training packages. Very good customer service and information to help you if your thinking of starting a business.