Good morning. Here is your AM bulletin, with the latest news and views from EG, as well as a few of the best bits from the morning papers.
The property industry has been responsible for at least one-tenth of donations to the Conservative Party since 2010. At least £40m has been handed over, more than 13 times the £2.7m it gifted to Labour. Which begs the question: has that been a prudent investment?
At the Conservative Party Conference, West Midlands mayor Andy Street and Manchester-based developer Bruntwood have been attempting to pull off an eleventh-hour bid to save the northern leg of HS2. With the PM strongly tipped to scrap the Birmingham-Manchester route in his conference speech later today, the mayor has been lobbying to have the scheme handed over to the private sector.
Deals for B&M and Poundland to take 100 Wilko stores are on the brink of collapse as the potential buyers play hardball with landlords to get more favourable terms.
British Land has received planning consent for a 140,000 sq ft last-mile hub in Southwark.
And Britain’s biggest Mexican restaurant chain, Tortilla Mexican Grill, has plans to become bigger yet, as it steps up its expansion in Britain and overseas.
Airbnb is planning a push into longer-term housing rentals as part of a shake-up of the travel accommodation app. Its boss Brian Chesky sees rentals of up to a year as a “huge opportunity”.
Densifying London will not be achieved by low- and mid-rise buildings alone, writes planning law barrister Martha Grekos. “We need to make sure that the default position should not be that tall buildings are a bad thing.”
Restaurant tycoon Richard Caring has been ordered to tear out the windows of his £40m Kensington mansion by a planning inspector.
And finally, for a mere £2m – “the price of a west London flat”, says The Times (£) – you could buy a 26-bedroom Georgian country mansion. The National Trust has instructed Strutt & Parker to sell Philipps House near Salisbury for either commercial or residential use. There is a bit of a catch, though. It is only a 125-year lease and the trust has retained the 31-acre grounds, leaving just a four-acre garden and woods. And it is a bit of a fixer-upper…
