Latest letters
Great news for the care home sector
Editor: I was pleased to read that Fortwell Capital has lent more than £450m to purpose-built care home and retirement living developers, creating more than £850m of value within the senior living sector.
Young professionals seek climate-conscious careers
Editor: My generation has grown up listening to leaders talk about the climate crisis. But we are still on track for disastrous levels of global heating far in excess of the limits in the Paris climate agreement.
Convert retail assets to flex space
Editor: News that banks are refusing to lend on portfolios that are heavily weighted towards retail is indicative of the continued evolution of the high street. In 2020 alone, year-on-year retail footfall dropped by more than 40%.
Community Land Trusts key to solving housing crisis
Editor: The rebrand of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities suggests its secretary of state Michael Gove is keen to progress at pace. But at such an economically fragile and critical time, and following a Budget that was positive for affordable housing, it’s important that the sector also ...
Landlords should act like partners
Editor: Bronny Wilson of Equiem wrote recently in this magazine that landlords should think about how offices can support staff, not tenants.
The Budget was full of recycled housing commitments
Editor: The industry had been drip-fed news of measures over the couple of weeks before the Budget and had eagerly awaited details of these changes. While it’s encouraging to see the government’s pre-pandemic commitments back on the agenda, many of these have simply been recycled.
Let’s rethink how stations function
Editor: Clare Flitton of Landsec recently discussed a “pandemic-driven office revolution”. This isn’t the only asset class that could benefit from fresh thinking.
Michael Gove’s housing policy shift is long overdue
Editor: Michael Gove’s plans to shift the focus of housing policy away from the South East to the north of England are welcome.
Whole-life carbon needs regulation
Editor: I read with interest and some frustration your articles last week on the complete absence of discussion on embodied carbon in the government’s new Heat & Buildings Strategy, and just a fleeting mention in its Net Zero Strategy.
Firms should be embarrassed by lack of diversity
Editor: Your recent front-page article – ‘Please mind the ethnicity pay gap’ – was excellent, but I feel it only skims over the surface of what should be an issue that firms are embarrassed about.
Better collaboration is the way forward
Editor: The arrival of the Commercial Tenants Association (CTA) ‘banging on the doors’ of landlords it deems bad is welcome in that it reinforces the need for the often adversarial landlord and tenant approach to change.
Why landlords and tenants should help each other
Editor: It is easy to criticise landlords for not showing empathy to tenants through the pandemic – while some could not, some could.
