Lem Bingley
Lem is editor of Property Week.
Contact info
InsightThe time is always now
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 ...
- News
The future’s bright (honest)
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.
- Insight
Mipim: plus ça change?
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 ...
- News
IWG adds employee perks for workspace users
Flexible workspace provider IWG aims to broaden the range of services it offers as it expands from the provision of space to the provision of services, chief executive Mark Dixon told Property Week at Mipim in Cannes.
- Insight
The bottom line for diversity
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.
- News
Don’t underestimate EVs
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.
- Insight
Planning a sustainable future
This week we learned who will shoulder the perhaps unenviable task of leading the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC). Architect Smith Mordak will take over from outgoing chief executive Julie Hirigoyen in June, at a time when the industry’s hunger for leadership in sustainability has never been more intense.
- News
BP charges ahead with £1bn expansion of EV network
Energy giant BP has appointed property agency James Andrew International to secure sites for a planned £1bn expansion of its electric vehicle (EV) charging network, bp pulse, Property Week can reveal.
- Insight
Safe as houses?
The terrible aftermath of last week’s earthquake has been difficult to watch on our TV screens. The scale of the tragedy, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Turkey and Syria, is numbing. It is impossible to imagine how it feels to witness or experience such devastation first hand.
- Insight
Wood 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.
- Insight
The circle of life sciences
This week I learned a new word, although I’m not sure it’s a real one that has made it into any dictionaries. ‘Cycology’ is the belief that events will run in predictable cycles, with the implied hope that you can make better decisions if you can see where you are ...
- News
PM stumbles in Zahawi zone
If any of us wondered what kind of leadership the UK might get from prime minister Rishi Sunak, we now have a clear indicator courtesy of the tax troubles of Conservative party chair Nadhim Zahawi. The leadership we are getting is not what we need.
- Insight
What lies ahead for housing?
This week has served up plenty of food for thought on housebuilding, and a dog’s breakfast of industry reactions that run from bleak pessimism to blithe optimism.
- Insight
Back to the office?
On 19 January last year, the government withdrew its Covid guidance suggesting people in England should work from home. The pace and scale of the resulting return to work naturally became a topic of great interest and no little anxiety throughout the subsequent 12 months.
- News
Warehousing and livestock land are investment opportunities, says Savills
Next year could offer an investment “opportunity of a generation”, but only in selected property sectors as the long post-global financial crash cycle has come to an end, according to Savills.
- News
London Mayor appoints new OPDC board and planning committee members
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has appointed one new board member and two new planning committee members to the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC).
- Insight
Tales of the unexpected
Five housing ministers, four chancellors of the exchequer, three prime ministers, two different monarchs and a partridge in a pear tree. Season’s greetings at the end of a very difficult year.
- News
Cadillac Fairview takes 25% stake in Stanhope
Canadian investor Cadillac Fairview, the real estate arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has acquired a 25% stake in UK developer and asset manager Stanhope.
- Insight
Small details, big gains
A couple of weeks ago I visited Brent Cross Town, a 180-acre, £7bn new neighbourhood for north-west London being co-developed by Related Argent and Barnet Council. Plans are advanced but work is still at an early stage.
- Insight
Be brave, be sustainable: interview with Lucy Townsend, head of sustainability at BDP
To make progress towards net zero targets, the property sector needs to explore new solutions to seemingly intractable problems, Lucy Townsend, head of sustainability at architecture practice BDP, tells Lem Bingley.
