Invest in the new Canning Town February 22, 2013 New development Vermillion is helping Canning Town become a thriving new area, says Naomi Mdudu CHARLES DICKENS may not have spoken favourably about the area in the mid-nineteenth century, but Canning Town is undergoing considerable changes. This month saw the launch of two new penthouse apartments in the luxury block, which span the top two [...]
Work placements for the unemployed make a lot of sense February 12, 2013 UNEMPLOYMENT remains obscenely high in today’s stagnant Britain, and far too many people – young and old – have been on the dole or on other out of work benefits for far too long. Anything that allows them to break out of their present predicament should be welcome. The government should be able to ask [...]
Asking prices back on the up as 2013 rolls in January 20, 2013 A BUOYANT London housing market led UK asking prices back into growth in January, data revealed this morning. London’s homeowners added 3.6 per cent onto their asking prices during January, Rightmove said, capping off a healthy 9.6 per cent – or £16,492 – increase over the year. This robust activity in the capital drove the [...]
November saw accelerating house prices January 15, 2013 THE HOUSING market heated up in November, according to the most comprehensive official data, released yesterday. The Office for National Statistics’ house price index climbed 2.1 per cent in the 12 months to November 2012, up from the 1.5 per cent growth recorded in the year to October. This overall acceleration was driven by soaring London prices, [...]
First-time buyers need to save eight years to build up deposit January 13, 2013 THOSE looking to get their foot on the housing ladder are taking eight years to save up the necessary deposit, according to research out this morning. The average deposit on a first home was £31,059 during 2012, Barclays said today, meaning potential buyers had to save eight times as long as in 1995, when a [...]
London leads collapse in GB home owners December 11, 2012 THE PERCENTAGE of home-owners in England and Wales plunged between 2001 and 2011, according to census figures out yesterday. There were 14.85m home-owners across the two countries, according to the 2011 census, carried out by the Office for National Statistics. The rise of around 7,000 came despite a 1.71m increase in the number of households [...]
Osborne blocks Lib Dem hopes for mansion tax on £2m homes December 5, 2012 MANY London homeowners breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as George Osborne ruled out a mansion tax on expensive properties, something his Liberal Democrat colleagues had been pushing for. The tax — an annual levy on homes worth more than £2m— has long been a cherished Lib Dem policy, which the Tory party have repeatedly refused [...]
HS2 critics tell court coalition’s decision to build was flawed December 3, 2012 OPPONENTS of the controversial High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link yesterday kicked off a major legal challenge, in an attempt to force the government to think again about the £34bn project. Lawyers for a group of local authorities, called 51m, told the High Court that the government has not properly consulted on the benefits and [...]
Why Britain’s housing market has escaped the disasters of the 1990s November 22, 2012 DESPITE economic woes, the British housing market is holding up reasonably well. According to the Office for National Statistics, house prices in September were 1.7 per cent higher than a year earlier in nominal terms, and only 2.5 per cent down on their 2008 peak. Of course, there are qualifications. Higher prices are mainly confined [...]
It is shocking just how much tax most workers have to pay November 20, 2012 ONCE again, Boris Johnson is making sense on tax. He is right to be calling for a lower tax economy and to oppose increasing the tax on homeowners – while simultaneously demanding the elimination of the loopholes that mean that the current system is riddled with problems, especially when it comes to corporation tax. The [...]