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.
A new masterplan for the £8bn regeneration of Earls Court has revealed a 10% decrease in the amount of development and just one tall building.
Palace’s CFO has quit as the REIT continues to focus on asset sales. Matthew Simpson said the time was right to move on as the shrinking REIT says it has no further use for his level of skills.
Landsec, meanwhile, plans to sell more than £1bn of hotel and retail parks over the next 18 months to fund its development pipeline and opportunistic purchases.
And Thailand’s Central Group is set to take control of Selfridges from struggling co-owner Signa in a debt-for-equity deal. Central is converting a €364m loan, reducing Signa’s 50% stake.
In other news, creative industry workspace provider Eat Work Art has taken a block previously leased to struggling co-working company WeWork in Hackney, E8.
Watkin Jones has given its interim chief executive Alex Pease the full-time gig after being impressed with his performance.
And the industry has welcomed Lee Rowley back as the 16th housing minister since 2010, but asks why a change needed to be made at all.
The chancellor has been urged to create a “British ISA” to boost the economy. The signatories to an open letter said it was an “oddity of the current ISA regime” that it “offers the same incentives for savers to invest in overseas as domestic businesses”.
Meanwhile, the number of corporate collapses is on course to hit the highest level on record. A total of 25,000 is expected this year, beating 2009’s 24,000.
The owner of UK battery start-up Britishvolt, and its development site in Blythe, is facing legal action over unpaid wages.
Working from home was to blame for the delays to HS2, the government’s infrastructure advisers have told MPs.
The number of properties that will be better protected from flooding by 2027 has been cut by 40%, as the Environment Agency scraps a quarter of planned new flood defences.
And more than 35,000 households could have been thrown out of their homes by bailiffs using “no-fault” evictions, by the time the practice is banned in England.
