A weekly round up of the latest planning and property news from the central London boroughs

Camden

Business traveller reports that co-working space company Labs has debuted its serviced apartment brand Stay in north London. The new Camden property has 169 apartments split between one, two and three beds, each with living rooms and fully-fitted kitchens. The apartments, which have a minimum four-night stay, start from 55 sqm.

City of London

Architects Journal reports that Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s new Barbican concert hall proposal has been allocated nearly £2 million for work to continue, though a planning application for the scheme is not expected until the end of next year. The concert hall will be constructed on the London Wall site that will be vacated when the Museum of London moves to its new home at Smithfield Market. The wider scheme will also include a ’replacement’ for the City of London’s 17-storey office block Bastion House on London Wall.

Costar reports that Brookfield Property Partners has mandated CBRE and BH2 to find a buyer for 1 London Wall Place, just months after buying a 50% stake from Oxford Properties, the real estate arm of Canada’s Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, to take control of the wider campus.

Hammersmith and Fulham

My London reports that plans to demolish and rebuild a historic social housing block next to the famous Queens lawn tennis club in West Kensington have been approved. It was built during the 1920s as a hostel for single women by the Samuel Lewis Housing Trust. Its new incarnation will include 27 flats and nine maisonettes with a communal courtyard and garden.

Hackney

Property Week reports that Berkeley Homes’ Woodberry Down regeneration scheme will use two of Navana’s proprietary tools used to manage mixed-use schemes. The first is NAVTech, which will be used by leaseholders for real-time service charge budget tracking, instant messaging and updates on accounting and reserve funds. The second is an app called ANATech, which allows occupiers to access a newsfeed, community updates, and events and food & drink guides. Data and resident feedback collected on the app will be used to inform how the estate is managed and regeneration of the surrounding area as it progresses.

Hackney Gazette reports that re-development of a council-owned Tesco site must include social housing campaigners have urged, who have scorned current plans which only aim for 20 per cent affordable homes. More than 100 people attended the Dan West Hall for a public meeting last night where they pressed developer Hackney Walk to improve on its proposal put forward at a pre-planning meeting in October.

Islington

Islington Gazette reports that a new energy centre using heat from Northern Line Tube tunnels can now provide warmth and hot water to 1,350 Islington homes. The energy centre in City Road connects an additional 550 additional homes and Moreland Primary School onto Islington’s existing district heating system, which already serves 800 households plus Iron Monger Row Baths and Finsbury Leisure Centre.

Southwark

News Shopper reports that a developer has submitted revised plans for a hotel in Southwark after its first proposals were rejected.  The original plans, rejected by a Southwark planning committee in 2018, included 220 rooms and were two storeys higher – an appeal was also dismissed.  Councillors argued there was already enough tourist provision in the area and were concerned that some hotel rooms would have no windows. The height of the scheme was also an issue. Designed again by EPR Architects, the proposals include a courtyard for local workers and residents dubbed ‘Friars Yard’, while affordable workspace will also be available.  Endurance Land says the hotel provision is expected to bring more than 80,000 extra visitors to the area every year and estimates that guest will spend nearly £9 million per year locally.  The application will be decided by a planning committee at a date yet to be set.

Property Week reports that Sellar has been appointed to co-develop the 4.5-acre Canada Water Dock following the site’s sale to German property investor and developer Art-Invest Real Estate for £140m, located in South East London. Canada Water Dock is surrounded by British Land’s 7m sq ft regeneration project. The site has an indicative masterplan to create three new commercially led buildings totalling around 1.2m sq ft. There is also existing consent for 1,000 residential units, including the 234 units and new Decathlon store that Sellar completed in the summer of 2018.

Tower Hamlets

Architects Journal reports that Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has submitted proposals for the contentious redevelopment of the Bethnal Green gasholders in east London. The proposal is for 550 homes, which would be built within two retained gasholders as well as in three new circular buildings on the south of the site. The site, currently inaccessible to the public, is earmarked for redevelopment in Tower Hamlets’ emerging Local Plan, which requires housing and employment space to be provided as part of any prospective development.

Property Week reports that Blackstone is set to buy Canary Wharf building The Cabot from Hines. The developer put the 4550,000 sq ft building on the market for £390m last year after an extensive refurbishment. Hines bought the building with the Hines Global REIT in a sale and leaseback deal with Morgan Stanley, which occupies 250,000 sq ft of The Cabot on the first six floors. The remainder of the building was pre-let during the refurbishment programme to parties including IWG’s Spaces which took 71,000 sq ft, the Office of Rail and Road, which occupies 21,450 sq ft, and the Competition and Markets Authority which pre-let 113,000 sq ft.

Westminster

Property Week reports that Shiva Hotels has completed the refinancing of its Middle Eight hotel in Covent Garden. The business has refinanced the hotel with Alpha Real Capital and Bank Leumi. The hotel is currently being refurbished and is due to reopen this spring.

Property Week reports that Cola Holdings has appointed Savills to find a buyer for its portfolio which comprises a 225-bedroom hotel, the Burberry store on Bond Street and Washington House – a self-contained building occupied by the private members Conduit Club. The portfolio is expected to achieve in excess of £1bn.

Olivia Harris, Chair of WPA and Chief Executive of Dolphin Living, writes an opinion piece for Inside Housing and warns that parts of the capital must not be left behind in the bid to rebalance the UK’s economy. Olivia states that huge parts of London also need ‘levelling up, not only to continue to drive economic growth in the capital, which supports the rest of the UK, but to tackle the significant areas of social deprivation’. Key to this will be delivering affordable housing across all tenures and delivering net zero carbon emissions in new developments.

Property Week reports that Nash Bond has been instructed to market 15a-15b New Bond Street, which was previously occupied by luxury jeweller De Grisogono.  The 2,000 sq ft store, is majority owned by Sodiam, Angola’s state diamond firm and Sindika Dokolo, the husband of Isabel dos Santos, who has been embroiled in a financial scandal. The store is vacant after the Swiss jeweller filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, following dos Santos being accused of embezzlement and money laundering by prosecutors in Angola which she denies. Prosecutors are seeking to recover $1bn (£760m) that dos Santos and her associates are alleged to owe to the state.

The Times reports that the major renovation of the Houses of Parliament, which would require transferring MPs into a temporary chamber, is in doubt. Instead, Commons authorities are considering a smaller £200 million programme of works to the House of Commons, whereby MPs would relocate to the House of Lords. At the same time, peers sat in the nearby Queen Elizabeth II conference centre. It would mean the AHMM-designed temporary chamber – involving the controversial refurbishment of Grade II-listed Richmond House on Whitehall – would also be cancelled. According to the newspaper, the reassessment of the restoration programme is supported by Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle, leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg, and chief government whip Mark Spencer.

General

Property Week reports that the joint venture, CLI Dartriver, aims to build a £1bn London office portfolio in the next three to five years. Dartriver will be fully incorporated into the new business. Looking to invest predominantly in the central London office market, CLI Dartriver intends to focus on value-add opportunities to maximise returns and may also put money into mixed-use schemes.

Property Week reports the government will invest an additional £11.5m in the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) over the next two years. The investment, announced in yesterday’s budget, comes as a direct response to the review by HM Revenue and Customs into business rates appeals in England, which upheld criticism of the system. The lead reviewer, Josina Bowering, admitted that “the CCA online system had limited functionality when it was first launched and fell short of expectations”.