Westminster

Property Week reports that Great Portland Estates has signed Polish fashion retailer Reserved for a flagship move to its mixed-use scheme at 70-88 Oxford Street. Reserved is expected to maintain its current West End flagship at 252-258 Oxford Street in a major retail boost to take up around 23,000 sq ft at the GPE asset. GPE’s 70-88 Oxford Street offers 123,400 sq ft of office space across six floors and an eighth-floor roof terrace. The retail element consists of five units offering 40,600 sq ft across two floors with an 8m frontage on Oxford Street.

The Evening Standard reports that the National Portrait Gallery will get a new wing as part of its refurbishment. The Blavatnik Wing will host more than one hundred years of British portraits in nine galleries as part of the gallery’s Inspiring People project. Dr Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, said they are “incredibly grateful” to British-American industrialist-turned-media mogul Sir Len Blavatnik and his wife for the £10 million gift for helping the project and the gallery’s “future development”.

The Times reports that New Bond Street has lost its tag as Europe’s most expensive shopping street after another slide in prime retail rents. The cost of renting shop space on New Bond Street is now $1,361 (£1,150) per sq ft per year, according to Cushman and Wakefield, a fall of 7%. Replacing New Bond Street as the most expensive street is Via Monte Napoleone in Milan at $1,380 per sq ft.

The City

Property Week reports that City of London commercial property investment in the year to end of October rose by 25% compared to the same period last year. The agent said the figure of £7.68bn invested across 91 deals was in line with the five-year average of £7.67bn, despite signs of slowing activity in the fourth quarter.

Property Week reports that City Corporation’s £1bn London market plans to go in front of parliament. They have deposited a private bill in Parliament to seek approval for a scheme to combine Smithfield, Billingsgate and New Spitalfields markets in Dagenham. The plans would see the corporation invest nearly £1bn to regenerate 42 acres of industrial land, relocating the famous wholesale food markets to a single combined site at Dagenham Docks. The relocation will also enable major regeneration of the Square Mile, with the Smithfield Market site to become the home of the new London Museum, while Canary Wharf’s Billingsgate site could unlock land for around 2,000 new homes.

Architects Journal reports that Herzog & de Muron have revealed it’s much anticipated proposals to build two towers above a revamped Liverpool Street station. The pair of 15 and 10-storey blocks form part of a wider £1.5 billion project for the key London terminus backed by Sellar and Network Rail – a major scheme that has already attracted controversy. A public consultation on the plans will run until Wednesday (23 November) in person and online until 28 November, following co-ordination with ‘key groups’. A planning application is expected to be submitted by 2024 for completion of the station improvements by 2026.

EG Reports that professional services firms have taken a record share of central London office lettings in 2022. Patrick Scanlon, director of insight and innovation at Alison Young, said a wave of lettings in the legal sector had bolstered the market during a period of relative uncertainty. He said activity was being driven by London being at the forefront of US Law firms’ global expansion strategies, as well as firms already in the capital upgrading space to ensure they attract and retain talent.

City of London Newsroom reports that The City of London Corporation is considering making permanent changes which were originally introduced in 2020 to enable social distancing during lockdown. Residents, workers and visitors are being asked to give their view on these changes, which include wider pavements, new seating and greenery, two-way cycle lanes and traffic restrictions on streets in the Cheapside and Bank area. People can take part in this consultation until Monday 12th December.

Islington

Property Week reports that Savills’ seven-story mixed-use property will lead its penultimate auction on the 24thNovember, with a guide price of £10.95m. The 13,614 sq ft property on Turnmill street includes 14 studio apartments, a single one-bedroom flat and three office units.

Hackney

MyLondon reports on one of London’s “most gentrified” neighbourhoods, Hackney Wick. Hackney Wick in the 1980s to 2000s was a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic neighbourhood. In the years to come it seems that this will be a thing of the past as the type of people moving into the area changes and what made the area unique, eventually gets lost. House prices have reached levels that are hard to fathom in one of the poorest boroughs in London. Properties are regularly seen on the market ranging from £600,000 to over £1 million. The once industrial working-class borough home to the different ethnicities and creative scene that it was renowned for is now a melting pot of middle-class professionals.

Tower Hamlets

East London Lines reports that over the past year, Tower Hamlets saw a 175% increase in vacant homes, making it the highest in any London borough. A new report by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities has revealed that Tower Hamlets has 960 more vacant houses than it did in 2021. This is despite the borough having one of the highest rates of homelessness in ​​London as well as 21,249 households currently on the council house waiting list.

Southwark

Property Wire reports that global property consultant Knight Frank have been appointed by Durkan Homes as the sole sales agent for the mixed-use redevelopment of Manor Place and Braganza street in Southwark. Launched off-plan this November, the mixed-use development Manor and Braganza consists of 89 apartments duplexes and townhouses across two sites. Phase one (Braganza) will comprise 30 one-, two- bedroom apartments and duplexes and a selection of two-, three- and four- bedroom townhouses starting from £720,000. In addition to the new homes being delivered, the project will also be adding a new health centre, pharmacy, café and employment space.

Lambeth

MyLondon reports that residents have accused Lambeth council of failing the homeless, after the number of empty homes surged. A total of 1,827 properties in Lambeth have had no-one living in them for over 6 months. There were over 38,000 people waiting for a council home in the borough as of March 2022, while more than 3,000 families are living in temporary accommodation.

Brixton Buzz reports that Homes for Lambeth (HFL), Lambeth council’s private developer, is staggering from one calamity to another. HFL and Lambeth officers have been telling councillors over the last few years (and even up until a couple of months ago) that everything was on programme and on budget. The report on to the panel says “Viability is a massive issue across the sector” and bemoans “Huge increases in the cost of construction materials… Supply chain disruptions and ongoing shortages of construction workers”

Kensington and Chelsea

Property Week report that Delancey and TfL have completed the acquisition of the Little Bridge Depot and surrounding site. This key land purchase paves the way for a fresh masterplan to be drawn up for a now 40-acre brownfield site at Earl’s court, expected to contain plans for 4,500 homes alongside other assets. A new masterplan is expected to be submitted by October 2023, with construction taking 15 years from 2025. Neil Carron, senior property development manager at TfL, said: “Lillie Bridge Depot is an important operational site supporting the London Underground network. We have completed a sale-and-leaseback option for the site with Earls Court Partnership. This leaseback will ensure continued TfL operations while we assess if, and how, the functions carried out there could viably be relocated as part of the redevelopment.”

Hammersmith and Fulham

Property Week reports that housing developer Pocket Living has been given the greenlight for its first Build-to-rent development as part of the Old Oak and Park Royal Opportunity area plan, for 25,500 new homes straddling Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham boroughs. Pocket Living development director Thomasin Renshaw said: “With unrivalled connectivity across London and the UK via HS2 and the Elizabeth line, Old Oak will become a thriving, inclusive and healthy new urban district, with huge benefits for current and new residents and businesses alike.

General

Property week reports that Jeremy Hunt’s decision to cap social housing rent increases at 7% has been met with a mix of relief and concern. This new cap replaces the original cap of 11.1% (CPI + 1%). Dolphin Living, a charitable organisation that provides affordable rental homes, said the announcement could have a positive impact on social housing. Matt Cowen, senior associate at law firm Winckworth Sherwood, said while the rent cap would not affect landlords as adversely as it would have at the originally planned level, it could still influence future investment in the sector.

Property Week reports that large planning projects are returning to pre-pandemic levels. Deal completions are stabilising at near to pre-pandemic levels despite lower overall commercial transaction levels compared with 2019, according to a report from Landmark Information Group. The group’s Commercial Property Trends Report (Oct 2021 – Sept 2022), showed pockets of activity such as large-scale planning projects are also gathering pace. Chris Loaring, managing director, legal and Argyll Environmental, at Landmark Information Group,  says “the commercial market has been more stable than residential since the onset of Covid-19, and while there will be ups and downs at a micro level within the commercial transaction market, overall, it is likely that this will remain more consistent.”

Property Week reports that reforms to the Solvency 2 regulatory requirements for insurance firms will enable billions of pounds of additional investment in a broader range of asset classes and long-term projects, potentially benefitting large swathes of the property world. The reforms would broaden the asset and liability eligibility criteria for insurers, increasing permitted risk margins. Legal & General chief executive Nigel Wilson told Property Week that the reforms would enable additional investment in a wide range of projects, including commercial property, later living, specialist housing, science parks, infrastructure, solar power, offshore and onshore wind, and direct SME lending, while ensuring continued strong policyholder protection.

Lexology reports that 1.8 million m2 of UK office floor space taken out of use in the past year. London has seen the most amount of office space taken out of use, with the greatest amounts of space lost in the following areas: Westminster (194,000 m2), followed by the City of London (142,000 m2) and Camden (53,000 m2). The study looks at 347 areas in the UK and is based on data from the VOA. Commercial landlords who are struggling to find replacement tenants are also taking the properties off the market for redevelopment into better grade office space or for change of use into residential property. Boodle Hatfield says despite the large amounts of space taken out of use, there continues to be high levels of demand for ‘Grade-A’ office space.

EG reports that GPE has a £900m pipeline of acquisitions in its sights, as the company looks for development and repositioning opportunities in the capital. GPE said that economic uncertainty and the rising cost of financing had dented pricing and values, and that further opportunities to buy will emerge. Nick Sanderson, Chief Financial and Operating Officer at GPE, said the vast majority of deals it has under review are off-market. He says “Our sense is that we will find even more motivated sellers”.

EG reports that the built environment represents around 40% of global carbon emissions. Paul Williams, Chief executive of Derwent London, says that the real estate sector must do more to be part of the solution.  “At Derwent London, we are making good progress against the science-based net zero carbon targets we set in 2017”. Green Leases should provide a framework to facilitate the shared climate responsibility needed to reach net zero. To move forward we must ensure occupier relationships factor in this collective climate responsibility as we each have a part to play.