A weekly round up of the latest planning and property news from the central London boroughs

Camden

Property Week reports that Camden Market owner LabTech has signed a lease with Immersive Everywhere, which produces Peaky Blinders: The Rise, an immersive theatre show set to open in the market’s Vanguard Theatre this summer.

City of London

The Standard reports that five architects compete for £150m overhaul of Barbican. The five-strong shortlist includes Bjarke Ingals, who designed Google’s US HQ, and David Adjaye, who designed the Holocaust memorial outside the Houses of Parliament. The winning design will be expected to bring the brutalist art centre, built on a post-war bombsite, into the 21st century, making it more environmentally friendly and easier to navigate. Also shortlisted are Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who designed the proposed Centre for Music on the Museum of London that was axed last year, FCB Studios, who restored Alexandra Palace theatre, and Allies and Morrison with Asif Khan Studio.

Kensington and Chelsea

MyLondon reports that Notting Hill Police Station could be saved years after locals complained about its closure. Kensington and Chelsea Council has made a bid to buy the station from the Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which wants to sell it to make savings.  The council wants to buy the station so it can be used by the community rather than become private housing. The authority is considering various uses for the building: a new GP surgery, space for local police, facilities for adults with learning difficulties, a rented community space and affordable homes for key workers.

Southwark

Property Week reports that Get Living has secured a £365m loan for the second phase of its redevelopment of the former Elephant and Castle shopping centre in south London.  Starwood Capital has provided a loan with a five-year term enabling the developer to create 485 homes, 172 of which will be affordable. Construction is expected to start this quarter. The regeneration project at the Elephant and Castle site has been dogged by controversy and false starts over the years, with plans for the redevelopment of the Heygate Estate first submitted in 1997. Elephant Central, the first phase of the project, was completed in 2017.

General

Property Week reports that rent collection recovery has slowed in December due to the Omicron variant, with the office sector proving to be hardest hit at 58%.  According to figures by Re-Leased, the cloud-based commercial property management platform, the dip was due to work-from-home advice as a result of the Omicron variant, which was identifed in the UK in November. In total, UK rent collection reached 59% at day 14 of the December quarter.

Property Week reports that the property industry has reacted with a mix of praise, scepticism and criticism to the government’s plan to ask developers to cover up to £4bn in costs to remove dangerous cladding from lower-height buildings.  On Monday (10 January), the government said new legislation would protect leaseholders from the costs of all the post-Grenfell building safety defects. This means leaseholders in buildings of between 11 and 18.5m will no longer be expected to take out personal loans to cover the cost of work to remove cladding. Instead, the government has said it will try to secure up to £4bn from developers towards the costs and if ministers are unable to secure the funding from developers, the funding may come out of the housing department’s budget.

EG reports that London Office specialist Helical has announced plans to convert to a REIT with the change coming into effect on 1 April 2022. Chief Executive Gerald Kaye said ‘Helical’s business has evolved in recent years from a developer/trader model selling it’s developer schemes to third party funders, to become a developer of and investor in new or refurbished grade-A buildings that are retained for their capital growth and long term income potential.’