Peter Bill
Peter Bill is a former property editor, journalist, columnist for the Evening Standard from 2007-15 and author of Planet Property. You can follow him on Twitter @peterproperty
InsightTo live or die on the high street
Additional business rate relief for shops will do as much good as giving alms to a beggar. Over 600,000 poor beggars already get relief in some form or another. Rateable values are referenced to rents, so rates will fall, eventually.
- Insight
Why we’re all Sneetches at heart
The Sneetches by Dr Seuss is a parody of prejudice and diversity – both current property sector preoccupations.
- Insight
Nimby policies to attract voters
Plop: the first general election leaflet hit the doormat last Saturday. A tightly targeted anti-development screed from Helen Grant, MP for Maidstone and The Weald. The loyalist successor to batty Ann Widdecombe is clearly not a deux with the Conservative target of building 300,000 homes a year.
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Questions for WeWork characters
“It goes to character,” say American TV lawyers when challenged for asking overly personal questions of the defendant.
- Insight
Stop building castles in the air
There is a housing crisis. More homes are needed. Private developers build 85% of all new homes. They complain of planning red tape and land shortages. Red tape must be cut and more land zoned for housing. Developers will then build more homes, won’t they? No.
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Towering ambitions in Docklands
At 7pm on Friday 9 February 1996, I was one floor up from Property Week, working at Building magazine.
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The lioness and her pussycat
PLP’s lead architect on 22 Bishopgate, Karen Cook, is a fierce defender of her craft, according to Sir Stuart Lipton, creator of the 1.4m sq ft City tower, which has just topped out at 945ft. “She is a lion; a brilliant architect,” he says. “But every lion needs a lion ...
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Something stirs in Wirral Waters
Something stirs in the long-still Wirral Waters. Dutch pension fund APG is close to taking a punt on John Whittaker’s Peel Holdings’ plan (pictured) to regenerate 500 acres of Birkenhead docks, aka Wirral Waters – far more mellifluous.
- News
JLL pulls out of Brunei contract
JLL has unilaterally withdrawn from managing nearly £2bn of hotel assets owned by the Sultan of Brunei.
- Online
Parliament’s restorative dome
Given the mood of the country, pitchforking parliamentarians into a shed in Tamworth and bulldozing their decaying talking shop would win more votes than spending £4bn restoring the Palace of Westminster. Insurers may view the shower (water, not people) that caused the Brexit debate to be suspended on 4 April ...
- Online
Lord Foster's 'pop-up parliament' considered as temporary home for MPs
Plans for a ‘pop-up parliament’ designed by Lord Foster for Horse Guards Parade are being considered amid fears that stalled plans to move MPs into the Grade II listed HQ of the Ministry of Health on Whitehall will add two years and £350m in costs to the £4bn restoration and ...
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Duking it out over section 106
The seventh Duke of Westminster should read Southwark Council’s 166-page report on why it last month rejected £800m plans to build 1,343 flats and a new school in Bermondsey. The council wanted 35% of the homes to be rented at 25% below market rent, rejecting Grosvenor’s 27.5% final offer.
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BL is backing IPSX and women
British Land will insert an iconic property, worth an eight- or nine-figure sum, into a special-purpose vehicle by the end of June. Shares in the SPV will be sold via an initial public offering. This will be the maiden float on the new International Property Stock Exchange (IPSX), which last ...
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2019 forecast: decade of disruption beckons
Come September, there will be an outbreak of punditry with punning ‘20/20 vision’ headlines forecasting the property trends over the next decade.
- News
Rothesay Life ready to move from Cheesegrater to Post
The insurance firm’s planned move to a new office in The Post Building would triple its London footprint.
- Insight
WeWork hipsters work the TRADS room
“Hi! We are the pretentious tossers,” cried Greg Miley, director of Broker and Real Estate Partnerships for Europe, Israel and Australia at WeWork, as he bounded out in front of an audience of dark-suited agents, a bearded pocket dynamo and one-time footballer in skinny jeans, his reddish hair scrunched in ...
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“Is Compass a money-blowing residential version of WeWork?”
Last week, WeWork backer SoftBank pumped $400m into Compass, a high-end US residential property site absurdly valued at $4.4bn. Some of that cash may well be splashed in London.
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Zap factoids; build homes on firm foundation of facts
For sanity’s sake, change the tune. Sixteen housing ministers since 1979 have accepted a factoid suggesting they are responsible for the number of new homes built.
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Croydon council prepares for Crexit possibilities
On 17 May, Westfield shareholders ticked the £18.5bn takeover offer made in December 2017 by French retail giant Unibail-Rodamco. A week earlier I’d asked Croydon council chief executive Jo Negrini if she was worried that the coming surrender of Westfield to the French might further delay the £1.4bn Whitgift Centre, ...
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Ditch CVAs for BVAs to keep stores turning over
”It’s like kicking a sick dog,” said one young analyst working at a major US fund last week at the Freehold drinks party.
