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
InsightDon’t go boldly into the storm
Next Wednesday, 27 May, British Land is likely to declare a stonking loss for the year to March, caused by valuation shrinkage within the £4.8bn retail portfolio.
- Insight
The guessing games are in full swing
As suggested here on 27 March, the level of grace under Covid-19 pressure will define reputations post-pandemic: that decency, or lack of it, will be remembered on the far side. Four weeks closer to the far side, grace and its twin virtue, decency, continue to predominate.
- Insight
Time to show grace under pressure
“Mummy? Daddy? What did you do during the time of coronavirus?”
- Insight
You have to feel for LSH staff
Feel for Lambert Smith Hampton staff. By the time you read this, one of two things will have happened: either LSH will have been acquired by reclusive Dane John Bengt Moeller; or the 950 staff will still be in the unwanted hands of estate agency group Countrywide, which has been ...
- Insight
To 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.
- Insight
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.
- Insight
Towering ambitions in Docklands
At 7pm on Friday 9 February 1996, I was one floor up from Property Week, working at Building magazine.
- Insight
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 ...
- Insight
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 ...
- Insight
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.
- Insight
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 ...
- Insight
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 ...
