London Sports Festival moves from 3×3 basketball success to pickleball at the City of London Corporation’s Guildhall Yard
UK house prices leap 4.1 per cent in bumper January – Halifax February 7, 2020 UK house prices jumped 4.1 per cent in January on an annual basis to come close to a two-year high, fresh figures from Halifax showed today. Homes rose 0.4 per cent in value compared to December, and climbed 2.3 per cent on a quarterly basis, Halifax’s house price index revealed. Russell Galley, managing director of [...]
Upgrade your movie night with these apartments that have home cinemas February 7, 2020 This Sunday (or more accurately for viewers in the UK, the early hours of Monday) is one of the biggest days in the calendar for cinephiles, as they get to find out the winners of the 92nd Academy Awards. Plenty will be staying up, if only to mock the dodgy acceptance speeches and secretly hope [...]
Drinks, scraps and weaves: Meet the couple turning plastic bottles into sustainable homeware February 7, 2020 It looks like wool, it weaves like wool, it’s soft like wool and you can wash it like wool. So how can these cosy rugs, cushions and throws be made entirely of recycled plastic bottles? The husband-and-wife founders of textiles company Weaver Green know the answer because they invented the thread – re-processing tons of [...]
Housebuilder Barratt’s half-year profit boosted by strong sales February 5, 2020 Barratt Developments has reported a rise in pre-tax profit for the first-half as the UK’s biggest housebuilder sold more homes at lower prices. Barratt, which sold its highest number of homes in 12 years in the six months to 31 December, said this morning that profit before tax rose 3.7 per cent to £423m. “We [...]
Housebuilder Redrow’s profit falls 15 per cent February 5, 2020 Housebuilder Redrow hailed what it called a “robust” performance in the six months to December, despite posting a 15 per cent fall in profit amid “an uncertain political and economic background”. The figures Redrow revealed profit before tax sank 15 per cent year on year to £157m in the first half of its 2020 financial [...]
Investment in UK supermarket property surges to six-year high February 5, 2020 UK supermarket property deal value surged to a six year high last year as investors targeted retail real estate with steady returns. According to the latest research, property investors pumped £1.78bn into the UK supermarket sector in 2019, an 80 per cent jump on the previous year. There were 48 transactions during the year, up [...]
Investors plan to plough billions into UK real estate February 4, 2020 Real estate investors are planning to invest billions of pounds into UK property this year, after the General Election offered some clarity on Britain’s departure from the EU. Investment in the UK’s property market had slowed following the vote to leave the EU more than three years ago. However, the recent Conservative election victory has [...]
UK PMI: Construction sector shows signs of life after election February 4, 2020 Output in the UK’s construction sector in January fell at its slowest pace since May of last year, survey data has shown, in a sign of green shoots for Britain’s builders amid lower political uncertainty. The IHS Markit/Cips gauge of construction output rose to 48.4 in January from 44.4 in December. The reading was still [...]
The big freeze: Investors feel the chill in M&G’s frozen property fund February 4, 2020 December and January have been cold dark months, especially for investors whose money has been frozen in M&G’s £2.5bn property fund since the beginning of winter. The asset management company felt compelled to suspend trading on its Property Portfolio fund on 4 December, due to the high volume of withdrawals by investors in the preceding [...]
Hostel chain Safestay reports strong start to 2020 February 3, 2020 Boutique hostel brand Safestay said it had “momentum” going into this year after sales surged in 2019 following its portfolio expansion. Total revenue increased 25 per cent to £18.3m last year as the hostel chain opened eight new venues, taking its total portfolio to 21 sites and more than 5,100 beds. Like-for-like revenue was up [...]