Good morning.
Holloway Prison will soon be replaced with nearly 1,000 homes as Peabody looks set to win approval for its joint venture with London Square.
Meanwhile, Rockwell and Cerberus have teamed up to buy a £300m development at Hurlingham Retail Park from Royal London Asset Management. The 3.2-acre Thames-side site has planning for 269 homes and 32,000 sq ft of shops.
Hammerson shares fell by 5% yesterday, GPE was down a penny, despite bullish leasing figures, and Taylor Wimpey edged up 0.5% on the news of its new chief executive, Jennie Daly.
And house prices(£) have hit record levels, again, but growth is slowing.
The Duke of York’s former home(£) – Sunninghill Park – has been dragged into a court case over a report claiming it was bought to launder money.
Jackie Sadek takes a look at the 332-page levelling up white paper and finds it about 300 pages too long.
While The Guardian says we should heed a warning from Manchester’s gentrified middle and hollowed-out surrounding towns – “levelling up” doesn’t work.
Alchemy wants to build Brasserie Bar Co(£) into a £100m business, after buying it from Soho Square Capital.
But one of the oldest pubs in the England – The Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans(£) – has gone into administration after two years of Covid restrictions.
And – quickly touch some wood – Crossrail(£) looks set to open in the next couple of months, after nearly four years of delays.
The Times (£) has an obituary of maverick Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill – whose designs appear to be the inspiration behind the sets in Squid Game.
And finally, the good people of Chichester are apparently furious with the claim by the ONS that they have the lowest “life satisfaction” in the country. The report – which was, after all, based on their own responses – is simply one more thing making Cicestrian life unbearable. Although, to be fair, they appear to be less annoyed with it, and the “pollution and overdevelopment”, than they are by The Times (£) spelling the town’s nickname as “Chai”. Kirstie Allsop is also furious with The Times (£), saying that the paper had twisted her words about housing affordability and that it just wanted to “bitch for clicks”. The Times reported her as saying that all young people had to do to get on the housing ladder was stop buying chai lattes – sorry, Chi lattes! – cancel the gym and Netflix memberships, never go on holiday and move in with mum and dad until they could afford somewhere miles away that wasn’t suitable. But apparently what Allsop really said was… erm… exactly that. But, you know, in a more popular way. Just as long as they don’t move to Chai. Sorry!
