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

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Camden

Ham&High reports that campaigners who oppose plans to build five family homes on a plot bordering the Heath this week submitted a petition with more than five and a half thousand signatures to Camden Council. This comes more than a year after Geoff Springer’s scheme to build three homes on the site of 55 Fitzroy Park for his neighbour Professor Lynne Turner-Stokes and her family was first mooted. Groups including the Heath and Hampstead Society, the City of London Corporation (CoLC) and the Highgate Conservation Area Advisory Committee (CAAC) have voiced disapproval of the scheme.

City of London

EG reports that Gerald Ronson’s Salesforce Tower is undergoing a post- COVID revamp that will see it replicated as a digital twin. The tower at 110 Bishopsgate EC2, previously known as the Heron Tower, celebrates its 10th anniversary next year and Heron International wants to ensure it can keep up with new schemes coming online nearby. The firm has instructed Hurley Palmer Flatt to deliver an upgrade for the building and create a digital twin that will enable the 230m tower to become net zero carbon, reduce running costs, and ensure its long-term competitiveness in the City of London.

Architects Journal reports that the City of London Corporation has named the five teams competing to rehabilitate Finsbury Circus Gardens and Pavilion. The five firms shortlisted are Rome-based Alvisi-Kirimoto Partners; London’s Architecture 00 and Feilden Fowles Architects; Belfast’s Hall McKnight; and Studio Ben Allen with Paul Archer Design. The contest invited rising star architects and landscape architects to draw up ‘exceptional’ £2.8 million proposals to restore and rethink the Grade II-listed 2.2ha green space, which formerly hosted a bowling green but was recently used as a Crossrail construction site for more than a decade. Participating architects had to have an annual turnover of at least £550,000 but no larger than £1.5 million.

EG reports JTRE has dropped its plans to buy an Aldgate office development site for £45m. It is understood that the structuring for the deal for 60 Aldgate became complicated.

City of Westminster

EG reports that record label EMI has been handed a hefty rent bill for the former flagship store of collapsed music retailer HMV. The label, which counts The Beatles and Queen among its artists, will have to stump up almost £5m of unpaid rent for the store at 360-366 Oxford Street. EMI was guarantor on HMV’s lease and now landlord Prudential wants its rent paid in full.

Global Legal challenge reports that ASK Partners provided a £25.5m senior loan to private real estate investment firm Meadow Partners secured against ‘The Brick’, a completed 73-unit residential-led development with commercial space in Maida Vale, London. Memery Crystal advised ASK Partners on the deal.

EG reports a comment piece by Olivia Harris (Chief Executive of Dolphin Living and Chair of Westminster Property Association) who describes her experience during lockdown. Olivia discusses how Dolphin Living’s immediate focus was adapting its property management service while ensuring its staff and tenants remained safe. The focus has now shifted to letting newly completed homes and bringing forward a new development.

Property Week reports that the NHS spent £3.5m block booking 400 rooms at the Park Plaza Westminster hotel to provide emergency accommodation for staff treating patients with coronavirus. The i newspaper uncovered the expenditure as part of an investigation into the ways the NHS was forced to make ad hoc financial decisions to tackle the pandemic due to a lack of preparedness from central government. Radisson hotel group, which owns the four-star hotel in Westminster overlooking the Houses of Parliament, told the newspaper that it had offered significantly reduced rates on the rooms.

Property Week reports that British Land has submitted revised proposals for its redevelopment of 5 Kingdom Street in Paddington to the Mayor of London.The scheme was passed on to the GLA after Westminster City Council resolved to refuse permission in January this year. Plans for the scheme, which would be the final part of British Land’s Paddington campus, include a 19-storey landmark building in the Paddington Opportunity Area, office space for 5,000 people, 42,000 sq ft of affordable workspace, flexible spaces for retail, leisure and community uses and a new public garden. The tower has been reduced from the 21-storey design which was blocked by Westminster council earlier this year. The revised plans also include a 250-seat auditorium, a new route connecting Paddington to Royal Oak and North Westminster, and a contribution to the provision of affordable housing in the borough

Hackney

The FT reports that the pandemic has caused a drop-in demand for properties and a slump in rental prices. At the peak of the outbreak, demand for properties in Hackney dwindled. During the first 10 weeks of lockdown, searches on Zoopla for homes in the suburbs increased sharply, while Hackney Wick, Haggerston and Hoxton were all among the 10 least-searched-for locations in London. Local rents have also slumped. New data from Hamptons International shows that across Hackney, the average rental price is now £1,740 a month, nearly 10 per cent lower than what it was last year.

Hammersmith and Fulham

The New Civil Engineer reports that the government has shunned London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s pleas for funding to repair Hammersmith Bridge. Khan had previously submitted a “large list of shovel-ready projects” to the government in the hope of receiving much needed funding for infrastructure projects in the Capital. Khan confirmed that the £120M Hammersmith Bridge repair job was on his wish list, while speaking at Mayor’s Question Time in June. It came after Housing, Communities & Local Government (HCLG) secretary Robert Jenrick wrote to mayors and local business leaders asking for information about shovel ready projects. However, Hammersmith Bridge has missed out on funding after the government announced it was releasing £1.3bn for housing and infrastructure projects.

Islington

BDAILY NEWS reports that the multi-million-pound refurbishment of a North London retail and leisure destination has reached a ‘significant’ milestone. The raising of a central centrepiece at Islington’s Angel Central has taken place as part of a £16m redevelopment led by CBRE Global Investors. The angel wings sculpture at the heart of the site has been raised by Farringdon-based firm RED Construction. The raising marks a ‘key’ milestone in the project, which will see the extension of the centre’s leisure, retail and hospitality space, and is expected to be completed in the autumn. Contractors are on notice for a Hawkins\Brown scheme to convert five warehouses near London’s King’s Cross station into offices.

Lambeth

London News Online reports that the start of construction work on a new state-of-the-art day surgery centre at Evelina London Children’s Hospital was marked by an official ‘breaking the ground’ ceremony recently. The new five-storey building in Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, will open in 2022 to increase capacity for planned diagnostic and surgical procedures. This will mean that patients will be able to have diagnostic and day surgery treatments in one place. It will also provide two new operating theatres, specialist clinical facilities and space for future services, which will reduce waiting times. The centre is part of a series of ambitious new developments planned to help meet the growing demand for Evelina London’s services.

The environmental Journal reports that Lambeth council has launched a new project to collaborate with the community to help the London borough become carbon-neutral by 2030.  The biggest contributor to carbon emissions in Lambeth is homes (40%), followed by the industrial and commercial sector (34%) and then transport (25%). The council is responsible for less than 5% of carbon emissions in Lambeth, therefore the borough will only be able to reach carbon-neutrality by working with the community. Through the Lambeth Climate Action website, the council hopes to get the community talking about climate change and provide a space to discuss ideas for a greener, fairer economy. These ideas will then be considered by the citizens’ assembly and in the development of Lambeth’s borough-wide climate action plan.

Southwark

London SE1 reports that a charity with a 300-year history has unveiled plans to rebuild and expand its almshouses just off Blackfriars Road. Southwark Charities plans to redevelop some of its land on the eastern side of Blackfriars Road to more than double the number of almshouse flats it lets to local people aged 55 and over. There are 25 flats in the existing Edward Edwards house which dates from the 1970s. Residents currently pay £25 a week. Under the new plans there would be 62 homes in the almshouses. The 21st-century scheme – designed by Bermondsey-based Fathom Architects – will also see the Prince William Henry pub on Blackfriars Road rebuilt as part of a 22-storey office block.

General 

EG reports that property chiefs in the UK’s largest listed real estate companies saw their collective pay slashed by £23.3m last year. According to EG’s analysis of the 29 FTSE 100 and 250 real estate firms, property chief executives took home £58.8m in 2019, down from £82.1m in 2018.

Property Week reports that deteriorating relations between China and the UK have stoked fears that Chinese investors will pull the plug on UK property investment and office deals. Issues such as Hong Kong and alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims had already strained relations between the two nations and tensions were escalated by the UK government’s decision to ban Huawei from the rollout of 5G in the UK. The situation has been further complicated by the mixed messages the government has sent out over TikTok. Last month, parent company ByteDance reportedly halted talks with the UK government to move TikTok’s global HQ to London amid heightened tensions between the countries.

Property Week reports on the  mixed response from the property industry to the Governments long-awaited planning white paper. The full coverage can be found here.