Housebuilders pull out of London over Labour planning ‘nightmare’ Property Top housebuilders have begun to pull out of London citing a “nightmare” of planning objections that have made developments unviable. Listed housebuilders Taylor Wimpey and Berkeley Group both said that the costs of navigating the huge complexities of red tape and planning processes in the capital are making them less willing to continue investing. This [...]
Cut stamp duty to reap £4bn windfall, Berkeley urges Healey Property One of Britain’s biggest housebuilders has urged John Healey to slash stamp duty on newly built homes, in a move which it says would hand the Treasury a £4.2bn windfall. In its Budget submission, London-listed Berkeley Group told the Chancellor that urgent action was needed to prevent the housing market from “sliding over an economic [...]
Stamp duty reform is ‘urgent,’ Berkeley tells Burnham Property Berkeley has urged Andy Burnham to commit to “urgent reform” to stamp duty, which it says has become a “binding constraint” on housebuilders and buyers. The FTSE 250 firm said that stamp duty is to blame for the slump in demand for new homes, because it makes first-time-buying unaffordable and dissuades existing homeowners from moving [...]
Housebuilder shares soar on Burnham council housing plans August 25, 2026 Shares in the UK’s biggest housebuilders rose sharply on Tuesday morning after Andy Burnham revealed plans to spend an initial £10bn on affordable housing. In an announcement on Monday evening, the Prime Minister said the initial funding package would be used to build “thousands more quality council, social and affordable homes”. The funding would be [...]
Housebuilder shares rally on Iran war peace hopes and help-to-buy revival August 3, 2026 Shares in leading London’s listed housebuilders jumped on Monday as investors bet a potential Iran war peace deal and a mooted new help-to-buy scheme would provide a boon to Britain’s flagging property market. FTSE-100-listed Persimmon jumped more than four per cent to 1,152 while mid-cap Vistry gained six per cent to 310p on Monday. Analysts [...]
Housebuilders urge Rayner to ‘hit the ground running’ and rip up planning red tape July 22, 2026 Housebuilders have called on Angela Rayner to “hit the ground running” and rip up planning red tape after her surprise comeback as housing secretary. Rayner resigned as housing secretary in September over an investigation into her tax affairs but was cleared of wrongdoing in March this year. Leading housebuilding figures told City AM they welcomed [...]
‘Great shame’: Berkeley challenges blocked Peckham development June 26, 2026 Berkeley has launched a bid to push through its 850-home development at a “run down” Peckham shopping centre, slamming the council for its “spectacular failure” to meet housing targets. The FTSE 250 housebuilder has applied for a judicial review of the planning inspectorate’s decision to block the plans, which it says wrongly put heritage concerns [...]
Berkeley warns of London housing slowdown in call for ‘political leadership’ from Burnham June 24, 2026 Berkeley has called for “strong political leadership” on housebuilding from potential Prime Minister Andy Burnham as it warned that London is on course to miss its housing targets. The capital’s biggest housebuilder issued a swathe of demands to policymakers, warning that there is “no prospect of material improvement” on housebuilding “without more decisive intervention” from [...]
As it happened: FTSE 100 scrapes into green after Segro’s surge; Oil at pre-war levels after Trump snaps at industry June 24, 2026 Welcome back to the City AM liveblog. European markets were a mixed bag on Wednesday after a bruising sell-off had investors across the globe dumping their equity exposure. In Europe, the FTSE 100 closed down just shy of 0.1 per cent on Tuesday, undershooting the bigger losses seen on Germany’s Dax at one per cent, [...]
Is housebuilding in London impossible? May 25, 2026 After its 900-home development in Peckham was blocked, housebuilder Berkeley said it can “no longer invest” in London. Felix Armstrong asks whether development in the capital really has hit a brick wall At the Aylesham Centre in Peckham, south London, shoppers are met with graffitied walls, peeling paint and shuttered retail units. The site began [...]