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.
The John Lewis Partnership plans to sell a dozen Waitrose stores in a sale-and-leaseback deal estimated at about £150m. The partnership hopes it will be able to plug its funding gaps with a series of asset sales.
And Home REIT has sold 137 properties, at less than a third of the price it paid for them.
Meanwhile, councils are facing a record cash shortfall of more than £3.5bn in the coming year. And that could rise to more than £7bn by 2025/26, says Unison.
And in Birmingham, the brutalist Ringway Centre, described as an outstanding example of the city’s postwar “carchitecture”, is set to be demolished after councillors voted in favour of replacing it with apartment blocks.
RICS is launching a manifesto for the built environment ahead of next year’s general election. The 10-point roadmap will be presented at the Conservative and Labour conferences.
RICS has also hit out at cost overspends on HS2, blaming the lack of a public works department. “You would think they would learn from their mistakes, but they don’t.”
And the BPF has urged the chancellor to extend business rates relief on empty properties. Only a handful are relet within the three-month grace period, with only 10% let within six months and 31% taking two years. The BPF says it should be 12 months at 0%, and then 50% for long-term empty shops.
Housebuilding in England jumped by 75% in the second quarter of 2023 as builders fast-tracked projects to avoid tougher energy performance standards.
The managing director of Life Science REIT‘s investment adviser tells EG why he thinks the REIT can still be “the dominant force” in an increasingly crowded sector.
Family-focused fitness chain Healthtrack Clubs has launched a hunt for new sites, targeting 150 UK locations by 2030.
And HIH Real Estate is seeking a buyer for a mixed-use 1930s building in Glasgow.
Corporate “greenwashing” could lead to UK farmland being forested over, the farming minister has warned.
A US private equity firm has bought a minority stake in Liverpool Football Club worth at least $100m. The funds will be used to pay down debt and improve Anfield stadium.
Two more people have been arrested in relation to the fire which destroyed the Crooked House pub last month.
The Telegraph (£) has launched its new-look Money section with a “Nimby’s guide to taking on developers – and winning”.
And the founder and chair of heavily indebted Chinese developer Evergrande is being investigated for potential “illegal crimes”.
And finally, all that glitters is not gold. At least, that is the claim of Boris Johnson’s interior designer. Lulu Lyttle has finally broken her silence about the former PM’s ridiculously expensive revamp of the Number 11 flat, stating that the infamous wallpaper was not gold at all, merely yellow, and only cost £120 a roll. Apparently it was the rest of the chintz and bric-a-brac that cost £200,000.
