Sausage dogs can’t shake off their muzzles
Deka and Difa may sound like a couple of playful Dachshunds, but they are, in fact, the two biggest German property funds.
Both are straining at the leash but failing to buy bargain-basement real estate in the UK. Why? Because both were caught being naughty puppies five years ago, when senior managers in both became embroiled in corruption scandals in Germany.
That has led to very short leashes being placed on the present managements. Our man in Frankfurt says that, by the time 400 boxes are ticked to approve a purchase, scavengers have already snapped up the deal.
On the trail of consents that never bear fruit
Government plans to allow developers to extend planning permissions, rather than submit fresh applications (EG, 18 April p21), have been welcomed by most in the industry.
However, finding out just how often planning consents expire without a brick being laid is trickier than EG first thought.
No central records show how many permissions expire because they are not used. To make matters worse, the Planning Advisory Service tells Diary that even councils do not fully know which of the plans they have permited have actually been enacted.
Jobs to race for at John Lewis’s Stratford store
John Lewis is on track to fit out its store at Westfield’s 1.7m sq ft shopping centre in Stratford, E15, by the end of this year.
From haberdashery to handbags, everything is mapped out. But the canny retailer is leaving one slice of space free as a flexible-use zone until after the Games.
It’s on the top floor, of course, and offers a magnificent view onto the Olympic Stadium and the Zaha Hadid-designed Aquatics Centre. In fact, it might be worth getting a job with John Lewis for those two weeks in 2012 when the Games are on.
Economiser Tchenguiz still needs a driver
Times must be hard for some of property’s finest. Diary recently spotted Robert Tchenguiz in Sofra restaurant in Mayfair, apparently ordering from the £10.95 Crunch menu.
However, Tchenguiz can’t be too hard up as he still had his chauffeur-driven Maybach parked out the back.
‘Cry God for Weston, England, and St George!’
Not content with having to grapple with the worst housing downturn for more than a generation, housebuilder Bob Weston is also fighting for a patriotic cause.
Weston, chairman and chief executive of Essex-based housebuilder Weston Homes, is calling for an additional bank holiday on St George’s Day.
In fact, Weston gave his 226-strong staff the day off on Thursday (23 April).
Weston added that just as London mayor Boris Johnson would be flying the St George flag outside City Hall, Weston Homes would be flying the flag outside its head office in Takeley, Essex, and across several sites throughout the South East.
One wonders who would have been there to hoist them.
From flash apartments to local allotments
All talk of green shoots may have been banned, but one troubled development site in London’s West End could soon be sprouting with cauliflowers, cabbages and carrots.
Icelandic bank Kaupthing said this week that it was considering a request to allow the 3-acre former Middlesex hospital site to be used as temporary allotments.
The idea may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. After all, Kaupthing is busy revising its proposals with new partner Stanhope after the Candy brothers walked away from the project, and the cleared site seems doomed to remain empty until the market picks up.
Mike Samuels, head of Kaupthing’s real estate team, said: “There is a question of insurance and liabilities, but if these problems can be overcome, locals may well be able to use the site.”
Targetfollow reveals a seamy Tunbridge Wells
Targetfollow, Lord of the Manor of Rusthall, and thus owner of the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells, has published a sumptuous history of the 400-year-old Georgian shopping arcade to celebrate the town’s first century as “Royal” Tunbridge Wells.
A series of magnificent photographs and illustrations chart the development of the pedestrianised mall, but the book also cites the 2nd Earl of Rochester’s revelation that the place was once a meeting place for “buffoons and praters, cuckolds and whores”.
Sting for property, honey for bees
The BPF caused a buzz this week with an unexpected attack on the nation’s bees. It criticised Chancellor Alistair Darling for plans to stump up £10m for research into the decline in bees while failing to scrap the empty rates property tax in the Budget.
A spokesman for the British Beekeepers Association refused to be rattled, saying only: “The government decides how it wishes to spend its money.”
Back at the BPF, chief executive Liz Peace stuck to her guns: “It’s highly unfair, not just that bees should be the recipients of a large bail out when our industry has been continually ignored, but we also hear that bee hives are to be exempted from any future business rates hikes.
“Clearly bees are fundamental in nurturing our food supply, but without property to sell that food, where would we ‘bee’?”
