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

---

Camden

Property week reports that Israel-based global amusement park operator Babylon Park will launch its debut UK attraction at Camden Market Hawley Wharf in north London this spring. The 35,000 sq ft, three-floor leisure venue will provide activities including a roller coaster, drop tower and bumper cars, video and simulator arcade machines, soft play areas and karaoke rooms. There will also be food and beverage outlets selling soft and hot drink, ice cream and waffles. Babylon Park has 19 sites in three countries and has plans for further worldwide expansion in the coming years. The Camden site will be its largest to date and has been designed and created by P&P Projects, which is behind attractions around the world including Madame Tussauds and Nickelodeon Adventure.

Camden New Journal reports that Essential Living had wanted to change the materials used in its 24-storey plans at 100 Avenue Road. Essential claims to be facing a £70million deficit if it is forced to build the “unviable” scheme it first won planning permission for in 2014 due to rising costs caused by Brexit and Covid. Last month, a planning inspector upheld the council’s decision not to reject an attempt by the developer to remove all affordable housing from its scheme. The Town Hall is now contacting those that took part in the planning process to see if they will resubmit evidence.

City of London

Property Week reports that CK Asset Holdings has completed the sale of the London headquarters of Swiss bank UBS for £1.2bn in the biggest London office deal in five years. The building at 5 Broadgate was sold to LaSalle Investment Management and the South Korean national pension fund via Broadgate Five Holdings (Jersey) Limited, a Jersey-based SPV. The transaction of the 732,000 sq ft ‘groundscraper’ office is the largest the capital has seen since the £1.28bn sale of the Walkie Talkie in 2017 and is the largest non-tower deal to ever take place.CK Asset Holdings, founded by Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing, bought the asset less than four years ago for £1bn at a net initial yield of 3.95%.

Estates Gazette reports that a team of UK and Canadian buyers is in talks to buy the site of a planned City tower in a deal valued at almost £300m. UK developer Stanhope and Canadian funding partner Cadillac Fairview are nearing a deal to buy Tenacity’s 70 Gracechurch Street, EC3, EG can reveal. Hong Kong businessman Patrick Wong’s development company received planning approval last year for a 34-storey office tower which would have accommodated up to 4,300 workers. However, if the sale goes ahead, the buyers are expected to draw up fresh proposals because it would not have vacant possession of the existing buildings until at least 2026. The 11-storey building currently contains a Marks & Spencer store on the bottom floors, with a series of office occupiers above.

My London reports that London’s oldest public park will get a ‘secret garden’, forest and a new café in a bid to create a peaceful ‘haven’ for workers and visitors to the City. Finsbury Circus Gardens, a 400-year-old park in the Square Mile, is going to be made fit for the 21st Century under a revamp led by the City of London Corporation, which runs it. The Grade-II listed park is going to be transformed with new plants and seating, better pathways, a new drainage system and a large café hidden in a ‘secret garden’. The historic garden used to be part of London’s first public park, Moor Fields, which dates back to 1607. It is now an oval-shaped garden that was first laid out in 1815 and is home to a Japanese Pagoda tree – the only one in the City. The site was used by Crossrail between 2010 and 2020 while the Elizabeth Line serving Liverpool Street Station was being built, before it re-opened to the public last August.

Property Week reports that British Land has partnered with brasserie Revolve to open a restaurant at Broadgate, London. Scheduled to open in spring, the restaurant at 100 Liverpool Street will feature a monthly series of guest chefs from the UK and further afield, offering a menu of dishes inspired by the brasseries of Paris and New York. Chefs confirmed so far include chef Lee Westcott, formerly of Michelin-starred Pensons and The Typing Room; followed by John Javier of 17 Little Portland St, formerly of MASTER in Sydney; Josh Eggleton of Michelin-starred Pony Restaurant Group; Anna Hansen, formerly of The Modern Pantry; and the newly-appointed two Michelin-starred Gareth Ward. “We’re thrilled to partner with Revolve to open its first ever restaurant at Broadgate,” said Alice Keown, leasing director, restaurants and leisure, at British Land.

Hackney

Hackney Gazette reports that seventy more council homes will be built at a Hackney Downs estate as part of the wider transformation and investment of the site. Residents at Nightingale Estate in Hackney Downs are “keen” for the council’s ambitious plans for new homes and a new temporary community centre to get underway. A permanent centre will be delivered in future phases of the project. The council has increased the number of social rent homes to be built on the estate, from 52 to 70. Its plans also include major investment in Olympic Green, a green space on the estate. Currently, the council is working to appoint a contractor to lead the construction work. The updated plans now include 70 council homes for social rent, all of which will be delivered first, with the council currently working to appoint a contractor to lead the construction.

Kensington & Chelsea

The Times reports that the government wants to use the homes of sanctioned Russian oligarchs to house Ukrainian refugees, Michael Gove has said. The housing secretary said that properties that are not being used by ultra-wealthy Russians could be adopted for “humanitarian” purposes. He told the BBC: “I want to explore an option which would allow us to use the homes and properties of sanctioned individuals for humanitarian and other purposes.” Gove conceded that there was “quite a high legal bar to cross and we’re not talking about permanent confiscation”. He added: “But we are saying, ‘You’re sanctioned, you’re supporting Putin, this home is here, you have no right to use or profit from it — and more than that, while you are not using or profiting from it, if we can use it in order to help others, let’s do that.’”

My London reports that Chelsea FC could be bought by a Saudi Arabian businessman following a £2.7 billion offer from Saudi Media Group as they entered the race to buy the club in crisis. The club is desperately in need of a sale after owner Roman Abramovich had his assets frozen amid his ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Saudi Media Group is headed by Chelsea fan Mohamed Alkhereiji, who was at Stamford Bridge in November as Chelsea drew with Manchester United. Mr Alkhereiji had also spent time in London when he attended Bayes Business School, formerly known as Cass Business School, the business school of City, University of London.

Lambeth

Love Lambeth reports that Lambeth Council is declaring two new Local Nature Reserves to help communities have access to well maintained and welcoming nature reserves close to where they live, work and play. The two new nature reserves will be in Streatham at Eardley Road Sidings and Unigate Wood, and add to the one already in existence on Streatham Common. The council is planning to declare more Local Nature Reserves in the coming years to complement the borough’s 78 parks and open spaces.

Love Lambeth reports that Lambeth Council and Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) have jointly secured £4.2million of government funding to improve the energy efficiency of nearly a thousand socially rented homes in the borough. The council and the affordable housing provider MTVH submitted the successful bid to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) that is run by the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).A total of £4.2million, plus a further £2.7million in co-funding, was secured enabling Lambeth Council and MTVH to begin work on 982 socially rented properties in the borough. MTVH has signed up to the borough’s Climate Partnership to collectively deliver the borough’s Climate Action Plan.

Tower Hamlets

Property Week reports that Asset manager and developer Lateral has acquired a prime site in Whitechapel, east London, as part of a bid to ramp up its life sciences portfolio. Lateral will submit a planning application by the end of 2022 to develop units of varying sizes on the 0.4-acre site for medical and life science companies to occupy. Rob Beacroft, director and head of development at Lateral, said: “We are delighted to have secured such a significant site in the heart of Whitechapel’s emerging life science cluster. Our ambition is to deliver an exemplar cutting-edge life science facility to act as catalyst and accelerate the evolution of Whitechapel’s Med City vision. “Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University of London, supported by Barts Charity, have helped accelerate the latest healthcare innovations from bench to bedside in a powerful partnership.

East London Lines reports that Space for an arts and leadership programme for young people in Tower Hamlets has been launched by the borough council. The programme is set to function for a short-term basis, before the space is eventually turned into an employment and skills centre for the borough’s residents in the near future. It will be run by Spotlight, a community youth service that offers young people in the borough volunteering opportunities, arts and culture events, and career advice and support. The programme will provide the space for art exhibitions and events hosted by charity and community groups, and it will aim to promote the work of young local artists. The space is located in the basement of the Fruit and Wool Exchange building on Brushfield Street in the Spitalfields area, next to Spitalfields Market.

Wandsworth

Property Week reports that Hong Kong-based Far East Consortium (FEC) has acquired Vauxhall Square in Nine Elms, London, for £95.7m. FEC has acquired the London scheme from Chinese developer R&F Properties, which purchased the site for £157.77m in 2017. The site is a 1.4m sq ft mixed-use venue and joins FEC’s repertoire of developments, including Consort Place in Canary Wharf. Planning consent for the large-scale scheme incorporates seven main buildings and two pavilion structures to form a new urban square, a secondary community space and a children’s playground on Miles Street. John Connolly, head of UK development at FEC, said: “As specialists in creating innovative, functional mixed-use developments, we knew we wanted to add another large-scale project to our portfolio. However, these larger sites are typically hard to come by, especially in central London.

Westminster

Property Week reports that Jazz bar Nightjar has taken the 1,700 sq ft basement space at unit G15 Kingly Court, Carnaby St, in London. Nightjar is part of the Speakeasy Entertainment Group founded by Edmund Weil and Roisin Stimpson, which also operates Oriole and Swiftbars. Nightjar Kingly Court is set to open in the first week of April and will be the second Nightjar branch – the first opened in 2010 in EC1. The venue will serve cocktails from the existing Nightjar menu as well as some exclusive Carnaby additions. There will be regular live jazz, blues and swing, with a cover charge on every table going to the musicians. Hanover Green Retail acted for the landlord (Shaftesbury) and Adam Bowers at onepoint2 acted for the tenant.

Property Week reports that The Parliamentary Archives in the Palace of Westminster’s Victoria Tower are set to be moved to The National Archives in Kew, south-west London, due to the risk of fire and water damage in the Westminster property. The organisation said that the risk of fire, water damage and failure of environmental controls and safety, as well as constraints on access and services, meant the Victoria Tower was “no longer considered to be a suitable place to store the Parliamentary Archives”. The move is expected to take place before summer 2025. Patrick Vollmer, head of the Archives Relocation Programme, said: “We are pleased to be able to secure a long-term future for the Parliamentary Archives. Moving to The National Archives will allow our collections to be protected in world-class specialist facilities.

Property Week reports that Abrdn has sold the long leasehold interest in Allan House, 10 John Princes Street, London W1, to the freeholder, The Howard de Walden Estate. The circa 18,000 sq ft building was bought for £12.01m, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.72% and a value of £657/sq ft. The property’s lower floors are let to Greene King, trading as The Finery, while the upper floors are offices. Hanover Green advised abrdn. Savills advised The Howard de Walden Estate.

General

Property week reports that the property industry has reacted to the Bank of England’s decision today to raise the base interest rate from 0.5% to 0.75%. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), responsible for setting bank rates, voted 8-1 today to increase the rate to 0.75%. Inflation currently stands at 5.5%, which the MPC said it expects inflation to go to 8% in the coming months and will “perhaps [be] even higher later this year.” The committee wrote: “The committee judges that some further modest tightening in monetary policy may be appropriate in coming months, but there were risks on both sides of that judgement depending on how medium-term prospects evolved.” It added: “The economy had recently been subject to a succession of very large shocks. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was another such shock.”