Property Week Leader & Blogs

• 

  Hope versus housing

  2023-06-02T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  Labour’s attempts to portray itself as the party to get Britain building have begun in earnest, with a couple of policies floated so far that appear surprisingly bold and more than a little divisive.

• 

  Thinking beyond the box

  2023-05-26T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  A few years ago, the mainstream media became transfixed by the prospect of self-driving cars, when it seemed as if either Tesla or Google spin-off Waymo might imminently bring such a thing to market.

• 

  Reckoning for rent reforms

  2023-05-18T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  The tabling of the Renters’ Reform Bill this week begins the formal process of scrutinising the government’s proposals, which already feel as if they have been debated endlessly.

• 

  Let’s not be lizards

  2023-05-12T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  The incomparable Douglas Adams, much-missed author and satirist, died 22 years ago this week. The passing years have not blunted his many sharp insights. Take, for example, his view of the political animal, outlined in the fourth Hitchhikers book, when the dialogue turns to an unhappy democracy of humans ruled ...

• 

  Will King be a royal influencer?

  2023-05-05T00:00:00+01:00By Stephanie Denton

  This weekend we will witness a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle: the coronation of a king. A six-gun salute will be fired from Horse Guards Parade to mark the exact moment the crown touches the monarch’s head and the UK will be alive with colour and noise. But behind the pomp and ceremony ...

• 

  Good eggs vs bad apples

  2023-04-28T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  The most recent annual report issued by the Confederation of British Industry, for the year ending 31 December 2021, set out the principal risks faced by the CBI at the time.

• 

  Industrial & Logistics: Another level

  2023-04-21T00:00:00+01:00By Andrew Hillier

  There is a child-like quality to multi-level logistics schemes, with their boxy designs split over several levels or storeys.

• 

  Are we there yet?

  2023-04-21T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  Pick any random word – ‘elbow’, for example – and repeat it often enough and it will start to sound weird and meaningless. The phenomenon is often noticed by young children (and weary parents) when questions get repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated.

• 

  Inflation proves tricky

  2023-04-14T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  Futurist and author Arthur C Clarke famously observed that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This ‘law’ of science and progress was first postulated 55 years ago and is now widely acknowledged to be true.

• 

  Apologies not accepted

  2023-04-06T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  Tuesday’s annual general meeting of Credit Suisse featured a lot of apologies. Chair Axel Lehmann told investors that he was “truly sorry” for the events that led to its takeover by rival UBS. “I apologise that we were no longer able to stem the loss of trust,” he added, after ...

• 

  The time is always now

  2023-03-31T00:00:00+01:00By Lem Bingley

  On my desk is a coffee mug, given to me by industry veteran Harvey Soning, decorated with a prayer to the almighty: “Let there be one more property boom. I promise I won’t piss it all away this time.” The mugs have been around for at least a decade, but ...

• 

  The future’s bright (honest)

  2023-03-24T00:00:00+00:00By Lem Bingley

  Maybe it was the weather. Warm sunshine bathed Mipim last week, sweeping away the industry’s gloom. The chatter in all my meetings was arrestingly upbeat – albeit with shades of that Monty Python song about the bright side of life.

• 

  Mipim: plus ça change?

  2023-03-17T00:00:00+00:00By Lem Bingley

  I am by no means a Mipim regular, and my first impression on arrival at this year’s Cannes jamboree was that a large section of the UK had been displaced en masse to the south of France. The number of English voices contributing to the hubbub in the busy cafés ...

• 

  The bottom line for diversity

  2023-03-10T00:00:00+00:00By Lem Bingley

  I am writing this on Wednesday, International Women’s Day, which serves as an annual reminder that everyone in a position of any kind of power needs to consider gender equality every day, not just once a year.

• 

  Don’t underestimate EVs

  2023-03-03T00:00:00+00:00By Lem Bingley

  Tech titan and former world’s richest person Bill Gates observed, in the hastily rewritten second edition of his mid-90s book The Road Ahead, that the future often catches us napping.

More leaders