Property giant Land Securities eyes £650m sale to fund real estate expansion October 13, 2019 Property giant Land Securities is reportedly close to selling a £650m stake in a leisure portfolio to private equity property investor CIT Partners. Land Securities is understood to have agreed to sell its 95 per cent share of the X-Leisure Unit Trust – which is behind developments including Xscape Milton Keynes and Brighton Marina – [...]
Why cash-rich renters are on the rise October 11, 2019 According to conventional British wisdom, renting is something you do when you can’t afford to buy a house. While that’s still true of the majority of London renters, there is another group – and they’re growing. Some are international executives coming here to work for a year or two. There are wealthy overseas students, too, [...]
Lawrence Dallaglio: England can benefit from cancelled match and World Rugby not to blame October 10, 2019 As the Rugby World Cup is thrown into turmoil by Typhoon Hagibis, England have fled the eye of the storm. World Rugby’s unprecedented decision to cancel two fixtures in Tokyo and Yokohama that were set to be hit by 100mph winds has ensured England will top their pool ahead of France and likely meet Australia [...]
HS2 review panel considers axing eastern extension October 5, 2019 The High Speed 2 rail project could be scaled back in northern England to cut costs. Under plans drawn up by the panel reviewing the project, the route beyond the East Midlands to Leeds and Sheffield would be axed. Train speeds would also be cut by 40mph, in a bid to save more than £10bn, [...]
Bruce Springsteen turned 70 this year. We visit the downbeat seaside town in New Jersey made famous by the Boss… October 4, 2019 On the boardwalk of the small seaside town of Asbury Park is a fortune-telling booth, which has been owned by the same family of psychics since 1932. When I visit at ten in the morning, it’s shut, with a phone number pinned to the window instead. Surely they should have known I was coming. This [...]
Ignore the parades, China has no claim to any kind of greatness October 3, 2019 Seventy years ago this week, Chairman Mao Zedong inaugurated the People’s Republic of China after his decisive victory in the Chinese Civil War over the rival Kuomintang. With the defeated Chiang Kai-shek having fled to Taiwan, the new dictator set in motion his vision of what China should look like and aspire to. Much of [...]
Regent’s Crescent: How John Nash’s iconic Georgian terrace is being reborn September 27, 2019 Walk around London’s west end, your eyes skywards, and you’d be hard pressed not to spot the work of John Nash. The architect to the Prince Regent (later George IV) built countless buildings in central London – from Marble Arch, to Clarence House, to All Souls Church on Langham Place. And then there’s Park Crescent. [...]
The private sector can unlock Africa’s promise September 27, 2019 The success of Africa matters to us all. The continent is home to four of the five fastest growing economies in the world. But still African countries currently receive less than four per cent of all global foreign direct investment. Around 20m jobs a year need to be created just to keep pace with its [...]
Crossrail: TfL to run Paddington to Reading trains from December September 26, 2019 Transport for London (TfL) will start running services between Paddington and Reading from this December, which will become part of Crossrail when it opens from 2021. TfL Rail will replace GWR as the operator of the services, with four trains per hour at peak time and two at off-peak. Read more: Crossrail shares progress pictures [...]
The modular model: Can factory-built homes solve the housing crisis? September 26, 2019 picture a vast warehouse somewhere in the north of England. Workers in hard hats are poring over intricate plans against a background of humming machinery. Robot arms slice through sheets of metal and wood as they pass by on a conveyor belt, precisely cutting out shapes that look like huge versions of Airfix models. Across [...]