Good morning.
Councils will have their power to block housing developments stripped in a “planning revolution”(£) set to be announced by ministers(£) this week.
As many UK REITs(£) defied the downturn on the stock markets…
… Hammerson is preparing a massive cash call(£), which could be launched alongside its interim results on Thursday.
Blackstone and TPG(£), meanwhile, have paid off hundreds of millions of dollars of property debt, in exchange for lenders not making margin calls.
Capital & Centric has secured £17m funding for its £54m Littlewoods film studio scheme from Liverpool.
Tech giant Apple is demanding its rents be sliced in half(£), despite seeing sales rise by 11% during the pandemic.
Amazon, meanwhile, is in talks for even more bricks and mortar stores(£), ranging from checkout-less grocers to bookshops in malls.
Byron will close two thirds of its restaurants in a pre-pack administration.
The wave of administrations has led a US expert to say that Britain needs to fix its insolvency system(£). The current one can’t tell a healthy business having a bad time from a zombie.
Wage growth in London (1.5% over 15 years) has been swallowed up by soaring housing costs(£) (43% over the same period).
Meanwhile landlords in England are still using “no DSS” clauses to bar prospective tenants on benefits, despite a court ruling that it is illegal.
CBRE’s New York office evangelist Mary Ann Tighe(£) says that the only reason home working has been at all successful is because of the social capital built up in the office. That capital is now spent, she warns.
The FT(£) asks “How safe is it to go back to the office?”…
… As its columnists agree that working from home is starting to pall…
Meanwhile The Times (£) takes a stroll around the “ghost town” of Canary Wharf…
… And that “ghost town” vibe is causing London to lose its “aura of fun”, which it needs to attract talent.
Hinkley Point C(£) looks set to be later and more expensive than predicted. Again.
And landowners are cashing in on the Great Staycation by hastily erecting temporary lodgings(£) on spare bits of land. Makers of shepherd’s huts have seen demand rise by 50%.
And finally, if you fancy self-isolating in style – or, more accurately, in the style of a Bond villain – we have just the property. Three 19th century forts(£) in the middle of the Solent are on the market. The two nearest the mainland are all dolled up and ready to be luxury hideaways – yours for a mere £4m a pop. The third, Horse Sand, has been untouched since World War 2 and offers a 99,000 sq ft blank canvas for a mere £750,000. How much you spend on luxury accommodation, helipads, underwater missile silos and sharks with frickin’ laser beams is up to you. But, if that isn’t Bond villain-y enough for you, you could always live under the water(£) instead…
