Good morning.
Manchester has been forced into lockdown after the government failed to find an extra £5m to meet mayor Andy Burnham’s demands(£). The move could lead to the closure of 2,000 businesses(£).
Down south, the government is taking aim at another difficult mayor by threatening to take direct control of Transport for London(£).
Meanwhile, the chancellor is battling with the PM(£) over the government’s £100bn infrastructure promise(£).
Government efforts to clampdown on pre-pack administrations have been criticised by the BPF(£).
Shares at the listed housebuilders have dropped after FTSE 250 firm Bellway posted a 64.3% decline in pre-tax profit.
Strong sales predictions(£) have prompted Bellway to reinstate dividends(£), though.
The rush to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday has created some severe bottlenecks as conveyancers struggle to keep up(£).
Wandsworth council is set to approve the £550m Alton Estate regeneration, just months after Redrow Homes walked away from the 1,100-home scheme.
DWS Group has appointed JLL to sell the nine-storey Capital House, EC4, for around £145m.
The City Corporation has recommend planning approval for the redevelopment of 1-12 Long Lane, EC1, next to Barbican station.
The FT’s Lombard column(£), meanwhile, has said that the City’s attempt to reinvent itself as a start-up hub is like something from “a David Cameron manifesto from ten years back”.
The banking industry is planning a new agency(£), tasked with collecting bad Covid debts.
Sky has announced that it wants bricks and mortar shops, in a rare bit of good news for high street retail.
But Poundstretcher has become the latest retailer to lose its auditor(£), after BDO bailed.
Air pollution(£) costs the average city dweller £880…
… As lovely, leafy Harrogate is named the best place to work from home(£). (More bad news for locked-down Manchester. It was named the worst.)
And finally, plans are underway for the world’s largest solar farm(£) in the Australian desert. The 50 square mile array – about a third of the size of the Isle of Wight – will cover just 1% of a cattle ranch in the Northern Territory. That’s great news, you say. Australia has millions of hectares of underused land, heaps of sunshine and has yet to get serious about using renewable energy. True. But this solar power will not be for domestic consumption – coal is still too attractive. Instead it will by sent down a 2,300-mile cable to Singapore.
