The news and comment website The Huffington Post unveiled a new Monopoly board this week in order to “more accurately reflect the average British high street”. It was as hilarious as it was telling.
So up to date is the (satirical) board that the collapses of Jessops, HMV and Blockbusters are all captured. Players no longer go to jail, but into administration. Instead of stations there are Starbucks. Meanwhile, the traditional light blue spaces – The Angel, Islington, Euston Road and Pentonville Road – have gone, replaced by a Tesco Metro, a Tesco Extra and an extra Tesco Metro.
You get the picture.
Take a look at www.huff.to/10CJzMi; if nothing else, it provides a welcome distraction from the icy winds that have blown through the high street in the last fortnight.
The demise of a band of retailers that failed to keep up with the digital pace surprised no one. Yet so fragile is confidence that the news makes us all a little more nervous about a secure recovery. If you accept that growth will be flat this year – and that, with the market offering nothing to help your business, only your own acumen will provide a fillip – even the expected can knock confidence.
Yet there is good news on the horizon and a blossoming spring may just beckon. Not for all, perhaps, but there should be significant boosts to sentiment well beyond central London.
Land Securities’ Trinity Leeds – the only shopping centre to open this year – is now 90% let or in solicitors’ hands. And at 185-221 Buchanan Street, Glasgow, the same landlord has let 99% of available space. In Leeds, LandSec is hopeful occupancy will reach 100% before the end of the year. In Glasgow, only a small coffee unit remains untaken.
With last week’s breakthrough in Croydon – as Westfield’s Michael Gutman and Hammerson’s David Atkins admit this week a victory for either one of them would have been “hollow” – the retail sector finds itself in an interesting place. As much as negative news can disproportionately affect overall economic confidence, perhaps positive news can have the opposite effect.
Trinity Leeds opens on 21 March and 185-221 Buchanan Street just 24 hours later. So we will know soon enough.
The government’s £120m real estate services panel continues to cause controversy. Four incumbent big firms have been ditched, replaced by smaller players. The tender process was mainly a tick-box affair, with little scope for an individually tailored pitch. That has left many of those who have been dropped complaining that the decision was taken on price alone, with successful parties pitching below cost. Appeals are threatened.
So are the concerns legitimate or simply sour grapes? It’s hard to tell. In this situation the government risks being damned if it does (accept the lowest price) and damned if it doesn’t.
Estates Gazette’s Question Time roadshow rolls into Leeds next week. Our Yorkshire & North East event takes place at 8am on 1 February at the Royal Armouries Museum. The panel includes Martin Farrington, director of city development at Leeds city council, Andrew Latchmore, chairman of the Leeds Property Forum, and Land Securities’ Gerald Jennings, who will be updating on all things Trinity Leeds.
On 8 February, we are at Surgeons’ Hall, Edinburgh, with a panel that includes John Bury, head of planning at Edinburgh city council, Scottish National Party MSP Colin Beattie, Stuart Heslop, regional managing director for real estate finance at RBS, and Daniel O’Neill, managing director of Ediston Properties. To sign up for the events, sponsored by Savills, hurry as space is limited: all the details are at www.estatesgazette.com/questiontime .
