A weekly round up of the latest property news from the central London Boroughs.

City of London

Timeout reports that a new sky garden could be coming to London as part of the proposed development at 55 Bishopsgate. The new skyscraper will be 285 metres tall, joining the Shard as one of the tallest buildings in London. Schroders wants 55 Bishopsgate to be the UK’s first ‘all-electric building’ featuring automatic blinds that respond to light to save energy. 

City of Westminster

Property Week reports that the Crown Estate have completed a 25,000 sq ft office letting to private equity firm Bregal Investments at its AirW1 development on Air Street in London’s West End. It is understood that Bregal have agreed a 10 year lease at around £97.50/sq ft. AirW1 was completed in 2011 after a £300m conversion of the former Regent Palace Hotel. The development formed party of Crown Estate’s £1bn, 20-year investment in its 4m sq ft Regent Street estate.

Property Week reports that West End landlord Shaftesbury has experienced a sharp post-lockdown bounce back with net tangible assets (NTA) and property values rising in the year to the end of September. Ahead of its £3.5bn merger with Capital and Countries, Shaftesbury revealed a 3.6% rise in the value of its net assets, to £2.46bn. Shaftesbury added that rising interest rates and a poor economic outlook had dented market sentiment and had held back its post-pandemic recovery.

Hammersmith and Fulham

OLondon reports that Chelsea FC could be set to move away from Stamford Bridge, which has been their home for 117 years, to a new site in Earls Court. Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’s former owner, tried to move the Blues to a new location in 2013, but was blocked by Hammersmith and Fulham Council. However, Chelsea bosses will look to try again, as the site was purchased by independent property developers in 2019. 

Lambeth

Architects Journal reports that Lambeth Council is set to wind up its arms-length housebuilding company Homes for Lambeth after an official review described its performance as ‘very poor’. Homes for Lambeth was set up by the council in 2017 to accelerate housing delivery, and has received a total of £30 million from its parent local authority. However, it has only begun construction of 65 homes, according to a new review by Bob Kerslake, chair of housing association Peabody and former head of the civil service. Kerslake recommended that Homes for Lambeth be ‘consolidated within the council’ after a two or three-year handover period, adding that the borough needed to ‘take a fresh approach’ to its estate renewal programme in the future.

Architects Journal reports that Lambeth Council has approved Hopkins Architects’ plans for a two-tower hotel building at Albert embankment in Vauxhall. The latest in a series of proposals for the Thameside site, the 872-bed hotel building comprises a 26-storey tower and a 29-storey tower, linked by a four-storey podium. The scheme also includes the retrofit and extension of Vintage House, a former warehouse building, which will contain office space.

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Architects Journal reports that the Earls Court Development Company has chosen three design teams, featuring three Stirling Prize-winning architects, to deliver the first phase of the redevelopment of the former exhibition centre site. The three design teams will draw up detailed designs for the early phase of this revised masterplan, which will include up to 1,300 mixed-tenure homes, cultural spaces and offices. Construction of this first stage is set to begin in 2025.

Southwark

Housing Today reports that LinkCity have signed a deal to deliver Southwark’s regeneration project. Developer Linkcity has secured funding to push ahead with the first phase of the Tustin Estate regeneration scheme in south London. The 690 homes planned for the Southwark site include 250 replacement council homes and shared equity properties, 220 additional council homes including those for keyworker, and 220 homes for sale.

Tower Hamlets

Republic World reports that Residents of an apartment complex opposite the historic Tower of London want United Kingdom’s King Charles to buy back the land amid fears that its current owner China, may turn it into a hub for shadowy diplomatic activity. A 5.4-acre plot of the Royal Mint Court was sold by the British Monarchy in 2010 to a property company. The plot once served as the facility that manufactured UK’s coinage. However, Beijing bought the land in 2018 and now plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars with an aim to transform it into its new Embassy in the UK.  Tower Hamlets, the local council of the area, is due to decide on the proposals for the site on Tuesday. As per the report, the proposals mainly consist of a grand building constructed for the Royal Mint in the 19th century in addition to some decommissioned offices.

General

Property Week reports that Planning approvals in England are at their lowest rate since March 2015. Savills’ data reveals that only 281,065 new homes were granted permission in the year to June 2022. This represents a 15% decrease from the peak figure in Q4 2019. The data also revealed that just under a third of local authorities do not have a five-year land supply, meaning they have not identified enough land through the local planning process to meet housing needs over the next five years.

Property Week reports that Central London office take-up is the second highest in Europe. The report from BNP Paribas Real Estate found that Central London offices saw a 63% increase in take-up to 9.25m sq ft compared with the first nine months in 2021, where it stood at 5.67m sq ft.

Bloomberg reports on the condition of sanctioned properties seized from Libyan ownership in 2011, and the potential similar condition of Russian owned properties seized in 2022. A number of Libyan owned properties were frozen in Quadaffi’s last days, and again following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian owned properties valued at over £2bn, including London’s second largest private home, were frozen. Sanctioned owners have been struggling to get approvals to keep paying for basic upkeep from a government overwhelmed by the scale of asset blocks.

CityAM reports that 1.8m square metres of office floorspace was taken out of use in the UK in the past year. The move was largely due to changes in working patterns since the pandemic – with the shift to hybrid working. The Cities of London and Westminster have seen the most office space taken out of use, with commercial landlords struggling to find replacement tenants.

Property Week reports that Qatar has launched a review of its investments in London, prompted by Transport for London’s decision to ban its advertisements on the London underground, buses and taxis. Qatar is one of the largest investors in London through its £450bn sovereign wealth fund and said the ban had “been interpreted as a message from the mayor’s office that Qatari business is not welcome in London”. London mayor Sadiq Khan asked TfL in 2019 to review its policies on advertising and sponsorship from countries with anti-LGBT+ laws, leading to a suspension of new adverts from 11 countries including Qatar.