ONE of the largest office buildings in the South East is proving hard to sell, even at a knockdown price.

The Chatham Maritime flagship offices of Colonial UK, the financial services company bought by Swiss-owned Winterthur Life, can hold up to 1,000 people.

But only a skeleton staff remains after Winterthur switched key staff to its Basingstoke headquarters and made others redundant.

The Colonial building is understood to have cost the Australian company around £38 million to build and equip in the early 1990s.

But, according to sources in the property business, it is now on the market for about £12 million.

Locate in Kent, the agency that promotes Medway to firms, has been desperately trying to find a single buyer but so far without success.

It hoped that a blue chip company would be interested in such a fine building in a great location.

Officials hoped that the tragic events of September 11 would spark renewed interest as large London-based firms suggested they were keen to quit the capital and the risks posed by terrorists.

But Paul Wookey, LiK's chief executive, said no one had yet shown any serious interest in the 160,000 sq ft building.

"It's a massive building and you need a big occupier," he said. "We did have some interest post-September 11 but that interest has gone away."

"We are very keen to see it occupied and it is one of the buildings we are constantly putting forward to potential end users."

LiK had looked at piecemeal letting but would prefer to sell to a single user. "It is a large building and generally in the South East there are not many occupiers looking for very large buildings."