Good morning.
After a five-hour planning meeting, Madison Square Garden last night won permission to build its 96m tall orb in Stratford, east London. The London Legacy Development Corporation approved the plans for MSG London, a 21,500-capacity venue, by six votes to four, with elected members of the planning committee voting against.
Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov(£) says he has put his property assets beyond the reach of UK sanctions by giving them in trust to his family. The irrevocable trusts are thought to shield more than £100m of UK property from sanctions.
Housebuilders have hit back at Michael Gove after he claimed that leading developers operated as a “cartel”(£) and did not take ESG seriously.
Meanwhile, Crest Nicholson(£) says surging inflation, rising mortgage rates and the war in Ukraine have not affected demand for its homes.
Politicians continued to take donations from property tycoon Peter Virdee(£) after he was arrested for fraud and bribery.
But the political event of the day is the chancellor’s Spring Statement(£). Tune in to EG to see how his plans will impact the industry.
A top official at the Bank of England says the “jury is still out”(£) on the number of City jobs that will be lost(£) to the EU due to Brexit…
… As the bank’s former chief economist and levelling up tsar Andy Haldane(£) says the cost of living crisis will hurt the PM’s flagship policy.
The FT(£) takes a look at how Australian property values could crash next year.
And has an interview with legendary architect Frank Gehry(£).
It also asks, if the future is online, how come tech giants are spending so much on real estate(£)?
Evergrande has blamed a “drastic change” in its prospects for a delay in publishing its annual results. The Chinese developer’s lenders have also claimed $2bn(£) from its property services arm that international investors had hoped would compensate their losses.
And finally, there has been considerable confusion over Peter Virdee’s donations to the Conservative Party(£). But the confusion isn’t over why the party chose to accept £100,000 from a man arrested for bribery – that doesn’t appear to have been queried at all. No, the confusion comes from the way the Tories declared the gifts. According to its accounts, Virdee donated £62,000 from his property business B&S Properties (London) in 2011 and 2013. So far so clear. But it then states that £36,000 was donated in 2013/14 by B&S Property – a completely unrelated business. In fact, when Clive Swainsbury, a director of B&S Property, was asked about the donations he replied that he was “flabbergasted”, adding: “I’m a member of the Labour Party!”
