All Comment articles – Page 25
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InsightWood you believe it?
Last week I chaired a Property Week half-day conference as part of our Climate Crisis Challenge campaign, held in a suitably sustainable venue: The Office Group’s recently completed Black & White Building in London’s fashionable Shoreditch.
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InsightGove cuts through leasehold jungle
Housing secretary Michael Gove has been accused of many things – being a “betrayer” for one – but as head of many government departments he has been an incorrigible reformer and enforcer. That is why former prime ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson relied on him so heavily.
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InsightGovernment must step up to solve cladding crisis
What tends to get lost in the debates around cladding is the fact that this crisis originates from a failure to properly regulate. The building regulations that are in operation, the building control system, permitted development that was intrinsically unsafe… and there were enough warnings through enough fires for government ...
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InsightPeter Bill on artificial certitude, real estate certainty
Last week, Microsoft founder Bill Gates suggested the coming of artificial intelligence (AI) was “every bit as important as the PC and the internet”. So I decided to put the much-touted AI app Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) to the test.
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InsightJo Cowen of Jo Cowen Architects on the Viability Crisis of 2023
Last year saw unprecedented macro geopolitical and economic uncertainty, rampant global inflation, war in the Ukraine and a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
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InsightConstruction PR’s Sarah Kauter on sustainable construction trends to look out for
Ensuring your business is doing everything in its power to stay ahead of the latest industry trends has always been essential to success, and with the challenges faced by the industry throughout 2022 – including the cost-of-living crisis, extravagant energy costs and material shortages – this has never proved truer.
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InsightNEAT Developments’ Youssef Kadiri on stacked industrial
The latest version of the London Plan included some subtle but significant changes to industrial land policies, particularly Policy E7, which protected strategic industrial land from exploitation by housebuilders.
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InsightSAY Property Consulting’s Debra Yudolph on BTR and the cost-of-living crisis
How should the build-to-rent sector respond to the cost-of-living crisis, and how will it shape future development?
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InsightGet in the zone with regen leases
At the Convention of the North in Manchester on 25 January, housing secretary Michael Gove announced the government’s recommitment to investment zones. The initiative will allow some local authorities to designate sites that will be earmarked for tax cuts, relaxed regulation and planning simplifications within that area.
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InsightFlexSA’s Jane Sartin on the role flexible workspaces can play in a recession
Despite November’s apparent bounceback, we’re all gearing up for what would be the second recession in three years. Covid-19 has maybe left us more resilient, but still, we’ll need to be as prepared as possible if this one is as long and deep as some analysts are predicting.
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InsightClock is ticking for consensus on planning policy
Although criticism of the government’s approach to housing is nothing new, recent news that four former housing ministers have spoken out against current policy should sound clear alarm bells for anyone involved in the development arena
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InsightCain International’s Ellen Brunsberg on preparing for a year of confusion
I want to wish you all a ‘Happy! 2023?’. The unorthodox punctuation is deliberate: It shows my uncertainty and conviction. I am both enthusiastic and uncertain. Which reflects the year we’re about to enter: prepare for 2023 to be a year of confusion.
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InsightHilltop Credit Partners’ Paul Oberschneider on how SMEs can adapt to the challenges of 2023
There are very few sectors of the UK economy sheltered from the impact of repeated interest hikes, and real estate is not one of them. Over the past 12 months, the market has moved from a zero-rate environment to one where the cost of capital has been gradually rising, affecting ...
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InsightDistrkt’s Camilla Topham on the not-so-dry January for hospitality
The market has never felt harder to predict. Early in January on a Tuesday evening I visited a West End foodhall and was astounded by how busy it was.
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InsightSoho Estates’ Steve Norris on grade III listings
Designer and TV presenter Kevin McCloud is a legend. Which of us doesn’t watch Grand Designs just to see how much grief couples go through to build the house of their dreams?
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OnlineEquities analyst Alastair Stewart on the adage of buying on the rumour, selling on the good
There’s an old stock market adage, dating to less assiduously policed times: buy on the rumour, sell on the news. At least when it comes to good rumours.
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InsightUK’s net zero plan must not overlook the obvious
MP Chris Skidmore’s Net Zero Review laudably focuses on making homes more energy efficient, but I join my property industry colleagues in calling for greater collaboration between the public and private sectors to truly tackle the UK’s energy efficiency challenge.
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InsightRates revaluation is a boost for retail
It is welcome news that M&S is planning a £480m investment across its UK stores, generating, as reported, more than 3,400 jobs and opening five new full-service stores: in Leeds White Rose, Liverpool One, the Bullring Birmingham, Manchester Trafford Centre and Lakeside Thurrock.
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InsightAshby Capital’s Peter Ferrari on whether life sciences can throw a life line to London
After a turbulent second half of 2022, exemplified by shrinking investment volumes as buyers kept their powder dry amid elevated inflation, rising interest rates and geo-political uncertainty, predictions for 2023 were understandably gloomy.
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InsightBRiCS Development’s Hugo Reeve on solutions to help SMEs deliver
In the past few weeks, several of Britain’s big developers have put out warnings about slowing or scaling back activity this year, owing to challenging operating and regulatory conditions.
