All Feedback articles – Page 2
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InsightHMV expansion plan is utter madness
Editor: This week, HMV announced a controversial new plan to expand its store estate, opening 10 new stores including a search for a new London flagship site, following the closure of HMV’s Oxford Street store back in 2018 when the company fell into administration ( ‘HMV seeks 10 new store ...
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Insight
Retail to resi: quality should always trump quantity
Editor: With regard to your recent story ( ‘Derelict high streets could provide 500,000 homes’ ), it is true that converting empty shops could provide urgently needed homes and help stimulate the recovery of town centres. There are also important environmental benefits to repurposing space in this way.
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Insight
‘Pingdemic’ causes more construction turbulence
Editor: With an increasing number of construction workers having to isolate due to being pinged by the Covid app, the industry could be in for a rough month or so until the guidance changes in mid-August.
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Insight
BCO office guidelines rarely followed
Editor: The current guidance by the British Council for Offices (BCO) in relation to the densification of offices and the utilisation of space has little meaning .
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Insight
High street solution to homelessness
Editor: It is promising to see new research by LCP Group and Savills affirm the potential of converting underused retail space into housing, which could provide as many as 450,000 new homes across the UK .
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Insight
Covid-19 pandemic causes rent review challenge
Editor: Rent reviews are difficult enough to value at the best of times, but there are two major problems in finding the correct market rental values as a result of Covid-19.
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Insight
Moratorium extension is kick in the teeth for landlords
Editor: The extension of the commercial evictions moratorium is a kick in the teeth for landlords, who have mostly been made out in the media to be big bad wolves preying on tenants unable to trade. This is quite simply not the case.
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Insight
Office tech: second best will not do
Editor: As pandemic recovery begins, offices can only aspire to ‘super-prime’ status if they have the tech to support it ( ‘New strata of “super-prime” offices could arise from pandemic, says BlackRock’ ).
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Insight
End of the road for property funds?
Editor: The article ‘ All eyes on Aegon after Aviva winds up UK property fund ’ turned out to be an accurate prediction as Aegon has now announced the closure of its funds, also covered by Property Week .
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Insight
Eviction ban extension has averted Armageddon
Editor: Senior property industry figures may have described the government’s nine-month extension of the commercial property eviction moratorium as “crazy” , but in my view anything other than this would have resulted in a feeding frenzy for lawyers and insolvency practitioners, as many thousands of companies face collapse against a ...
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Insight
Extended moratorium: taking from Peter to pay Paul
Editor: It is true that Covid-19 has brought many retail and hospitality occupiers to crisis point – and some with little support from property owners.
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Insight
Eviction ban just delays the inevitable
Editor: A further nine-month extension to the commercial property eviction moratorium in many cases only delays the inevitable – it’s unlikely in itself to save the occupier but could cause terminal damage to the landlord . It’s a classic kicking-the-can-down-the-road situation.
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Insight
Government support key to greater gender equality
Editor: New schemes to champion gender equality in the construction industry are a promising step, and we must also continue to focus on the broader work required to empower women across the property sector as a whole (‘ Two industry leaders appointed to spearhead campaign tackling gender inequality in construction ...
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Insight
We must design safe, inclusive spaces
Editor: Your recent article on designing spaces with a wide range of needs in mind struck a chord with me .
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Insight
Do not ignore ESG when recruiting
Editor: As the property industry embraces ever more ambitious sustainability targets, we are right to be cautious about the rising threat of ‘greenwashing’ (‘ Greenwashing is a threat we should all seek to challenge ’). One area where that threat is most acute for the real estate industry is talent ...
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Insight
Greenfield sites needed to meet housing demand
Editor: The CPRE’s latest report is right about one thing – too few homes are being planned for the north of England .
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Insight
WeWork is Icarus of flexible workspace
Editor: Last week, WeWork published its Q1 results for 2021. Its losses – both financial and including a quarter of its members – come as little surprise (‘ WeWork loses £1.48bn and quarter of members due to Covid ’).
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Insight
Boosting later living will aid UK’s recovery
Editor: News that increasing numbers of over-65s will seek a sense of community in later life as a result of the pandemic adds urgency to the elderly living sector’s need for modernisation (‘ Pandemic shifts view of later living for quarter of over 65s ’).
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Insight
There are more landlord v tenant cases to come
Editor: It seems that Dan Taylor’s article in Property Week celebrating the Westfield vs Fragrance Shop CVA wins for landlords was premature.
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Insight
Tech-driven offices are key to attracting tech occupiers
Editor: I echo the optimism shared by Manish Chande in his recent article regarding the growth of the UK technology sector and its potential to underpin demand for workspace in the years ahead.
