Every so often, a press release arrives that spurs some good-natured competition between the editors of EG’s hindmost (and, we like to think, foremost) pages. And, when a missive pings into our inbox informing us that a Commonwealth Games fencing gold medallist has been appointed as a building surveyor, it is very much on between People and Diary. Who should get to announce the happy news that property consultancy Vail Williams has added Calum Maynard (pictured) – part of the England team which took gold in Australia in 2018 – to its Surrey regional team in the Woking office? There’s only one way to decide. Épées at the ready in the office – masks down, blades up, “En garde!” and off we go! The lunges, parries and ripostes come thick and fast in a hotly contested duel but, happily, Diary is (only just) the first to 15. So, congratulations to Maynard on his new role – we only hope he’ll be able to handle the cut-and-thrust.
Fudging the issue
Corporate finance can be confusing. That’s why investment bankers get the big bucks. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that even the biggest names in UK plc sometimes get a little muddled. When SEGRO announced that it had secured €225m (£193m) through a US private placement last month, it did so with a 10am stock exchange statement titled “Issue of equity”. Only, er, the deal wasn’t an equity issuance. Forty-three minutes later came the replacement statement, now titled “Issue of debt”. “All other details remain unchanged,” the company reassured us. Good to know, as the debt bill’s in the details.
Self (storage) love
It’s no news that self-storage is a hot commodity right now, but just how keen are Brits to offload their precious stuff into off-site containers? Very keen. More so than anyone in Europe, apparently. And the “storage solutions and removals experts” at Lovespace should know. They have studied information from Statista.com to find there was an estimated 4.7m sq m of lettable self-storage in the UK as of last year, and concluded that that makes the UK “the self-storage capital of Europe – by some considerable distance”. We’ve trounced the competition, boasting more than three times as much as second-place France (1.4m sq m) and close to five times as much as Spain in third (1m sq m). Doesn’t it make you proud to be British?
All the people, so many people
Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as park life – and some of those habitual voyeurs will pay a pretty penny for the privilege. Especially in London. According to research-happy estate agent Benham and Reeves, the capital’s homebuyers have to pay 50% over the average house price to live near one of its “great parks”, with Kensington Gardens commanding £1,474 per sq ft – a whopping 144.2% above the city average. Homes near Green Park sell for £1,408 per sq ft (133.2% above), while Hyde Park is not far behind (132.6%) and other top “park premiums” include St James’s Park (105.1%), Battersea Park (87.6%) and Regent’s Park (70.9%). However, there are still some sweet parkside deals out there, notably near Crystal Palace Park, where the average price of £546 per sq ft is actually 9.6% below the wider London average. Making getting a mortgage, ahem, a walk in the park.
Hare today, gone tomorrow
Or rather, hare six years ago, still gone today. On a recent site visit to the delightfully named Trumpington Meadows, a Grosvenor development in Cambridge, Diary learned of a beloved former resident who has been long missing but still isn’t forgotten. A £3,000, five-foot-tall ornamental wooden hare, which had been bolted to the ground in the 148-acre Trumpington Meadows Country Park, vanished back in December 2016 – stolen in the dead of night by unidentified but well-equipped thieves, leading to outcry from the community. Locals came together to demand its return and offered a sizeable reward for the hare’s return, sadly without success. A replacement hare now stands in its place, but the anger remains. So, if you spy a large wooden hare in your neighbour’s garden, get in touch with Grosvenor – the bounty is sitting there, still waiting to be claimed.
