Good morning. Here is your AM bulletin, filled with the latest news and views from EG and a few of the best bits from the morning papers.
Plans for the 1.4m sq ft regeneration of Puddle Dock, EC4, are being drawn up by Almacantar. The Bennett Associates masterplan, which features 900,000 sq ft of offices next to Blackfriars Bridge, is one of London’s first large-scale schemes put together post-Covid.
A portfolio of six Vodafone data centre and office freeholds in central London has been put up for sale for £100m.
Britain’s planning system is grinding to a halt with more than 500,000 developments delayed over the past five years. Only 19% of applications were processed in 13 weeks over the past year, down from 57% 10 years ago.
Patrizia is pushing to wind up Sanjeev Gupta’s commodities trading firm, claiming it is owed £8.9m after Liberty Commodities “never paid a penny” towards its lease at 40 Grosvenor Place, SW1.
The 9,500-acre Rothbury Estate in Northumberland, one of the largest single blocks of land ever to be put up for sale, has gone on the market with an asking price of £35m. The vendor, the Duke of Northumberland’s youngest son, says he wants to move further south.
In other news, self-storage group Lok’nStore has raised £20.5m in an oversubscribed share offer to help expand its portfolio.
Far East Consortium has hired Urban Bubble managing director Gemma Price to lead a newly created estates division.
Construction has slumped into negative territory, according to the latest S&P CIPS PMI. Construction is down from 51.6 to 48.9, dragged down by housebuilding, which slumped further from 42.7 to 39.6.
MJ Gleeson’s latest figures support this. The low-cost housebuilder sold 1,723 homes this year, down from 2,000 last year.
Gatwick Airport has submitted plans to increase its capacity by 60%.
And the government’s decision to delay HS2’s Euston terminus will cost an extra £200m in upfront costs, a committee of MPs has said.
Dubai has become the busiest market for $10m-plus homes for the first time, selling 92 homes worth a total of $1.7bn in Q1.
And the world’s biggest advertising agency, WPP, has finally moved to its new home at the former Granada Studios in Manchester.
And finally, The Times (£) chats to England cricketer Stuart Broad about what he does when he isn’t facing Australia over the stumps. Turns out he has a small pubs business, one of which burnt down. Cue a lot of ashes-related puns.
