MORNING NEWS: LondonMetric nabs BL exec

Good morning. Here’s your daily round-up of the latest news and views from EG and a collection of industry-relevant headlines from the nationals, all perfectly curated to set you up for the day ahead. As work starts on the UK’s first skyscraper lab, EG sits down for an exclusive interview with Tom Venner, chief development officer at Canary Wharf Group, to talk about exactly what its 23-storey, 823,000 sq ft tower is going to deliver for London’s growing life sciences sector and whether it can handle the competition from nearby clusters. “There isn’t a better scheme in London, so I’m not scared,” Venner told EG. “We are doing this because we are confident in the current state of the life sciences market, but also in the future. We would certainly not be put off by another developer delivering one, two, three, four, five other buildings, because we believe that this city has huge capacity and huge untapped potential.” That untapped potential also applies to the Canary Wharf estate, of course, where it is working through an evolution away from tall office blocks to something more mixed-use. “We have been on a diversification journey for 30 to 35 years,” says Venner. “I think Canary Wharf is a microcosm of the world, in the sense that we are not seeing single-use, single-occupier type places. And, actually, I think we are already well ahead of this.” While CWG and its partner Kadans start putting brick on brick at 1 North Quay, British Land is having to rebuild its executive committee after long-standing employee Darren Richards quit to join his old pal and colleague Andrew Jones at LondonMetric. Richards, who was head of real estate at BL, will now be chief investment officer at LondonMetric, tasked with helping the continued growth of the business. And in news from Liverpool, EG’s reporter on the ground Evelina Grecenko has been dashing between real estate events to see what property wants from Labour leaders. London councils are keen to team up with private developers to unblock stalled sites to deliver much-needed housing. “One of the biggest bugs is the fact that we have large developers that are sitting on land and don’t do anything,” said mayor of Lewisham Brenda Dacres. “Across London there are 186,000 planning applications that are just sitting there waiting for developers to start building,” she said. “We need powers to give us the ability to really push them forward so that they don’t just tinker about and drill a few holes but build up in a timely manner. We’ve got this crisis in landbanking, now it’s time to resolve it.” Dacres added: “We have a long way to go with the Greater London Authority and other bodies to be able to give us the ability to be much more eager to take their powers so that we can adopt the developments and build the homes.”Elsewhere in the world of real estate, the long-mooted Capital & Regional and NewRiver REIT merger looks finally set to clear as the CapReg team recommend the £147m offer, the equally long-awaited Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard has finally been launched, and retailers struggling for space can expect something of a fillip next year as the Portman Estate and Derwent London unite to bring a new 28,500 sq ft boulevard of shops and restaurants to London’s Marylebone.Plus, Cain International’s Jonathan Goldstein writes exclusively for EG about why offices are about to make a great big comeback. All of the news from EG, plus a selection of headlines from the nationals: BL’s Richards rejoins Jones at LondonMetricCapReg recommends NewRiver takeoverAbrdn sells Manchester office at hefty discountLondon councils seek powers to kick-start housing schemes’There isn’t a better scheme in London’: CWG and Kadans on their lab towerMinimum energy standards plans for social rented homesCOMMENT: Is the office about to become the comeback kid of the corporate world?Portman and Derwent team up for new retail destinationIndustry launches UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings StandardFormer Argent director to lead major genome campusDelin delivers for EvriBarking & Dagenham gets new director of placeGraduate start pays off for Lunson’s new equity directorsWest London care home sold for £30m resi redevelopmentConsultancy Gleeds picks new London HQColumbia Threadneedle signs new retailers for Yorkshire’s ParkgateBritish Gas Leicester HQ hits the marketMIX Manchester seals deal for largest Premier Inn in the NorthCrosstree and Bloom kick off new £200m industrial partnershipFashion retailers dominate retail letting dealsBGO seals largest ever Victoria office preletNational deals round-upForsters appoints new head of commercial real estateLISTEN: Dealmaker of the Month: Joanna Kearvell, Chandler GarveyMinisters must decide by end of year whether HS2 reaches Euston (£)The US investor quietly becoming one of Britain’s biggest retail owners (£)D&D owners cook up TGI Fridays takeover