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Developer LBS Properties has secured planning consent for its £230m, 48-storey tower at 225 Marsh Wall, near Canary Wharf, a year after it was initially rejected by Tower Hamlets Council for being “too large”. The development, backed by Cubitt Properties and designed by Make Architects, will replace an existing office building with 332 apartments, 71 of which have been marked as affordable, ranging from one to four bedrooms. Nick Crawford, managing director at LBS Properties, said: “We are delighted to have received planning permission for this significant development, that will provide high-quality new homes, commercial space, and extensive public realm, contributing to the evolution of the South Quay area as an attractive place to live and work. It will combine with The Madison, due to complete in 2020, to provide a new public square for Marsh Wall East, and over 750 new homes in two slender towers”.
Architects Journal (18/10/2018) B Daily (18/10/2018)
House prices rose 3.2% in the year to August, the slowest pace of growth since August 2013, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), taking the average UK house price to £233,000 in the month, up £7,000 on the same month last year. The slow London market is weighing on the average, with year-on-year house prices in the capital falling 0.16%, to £486,304.
The Daily Telegraph (17/10/2018)
Landlords are abandoning London in droves, spending billions less on property purchases than they were three years ago which in turn is leaving tenants facing a possible shortage of homes and rising rents. British buy-to-let investors spent £12.1bn on property purchases in the first half of this year - £5.2bn less than in the first half of 2015, according to statistics from HM Revenue & Customs.
The Times (14/10/2018)
Rohan Silva in the Standard discusses London’s “crazy property ladder,” which is making the city unaffordable for first-time buyers even compared to other major cities like Singapore, where the government “is playing a much bigger and more ambitious role in building homes,” with a “transformative” effect. While he calls for planning reform “to make it faster and cheaper to construct homes,” he says, “the truth is the private sector alone can’t fix the housing crisis.” He urges the Chancellor to follow through on Theresa May’s announcement of an end to the council borrowing cap to fund the building of more council homes.
Evening Standard (12/10/2018)
Prime properties in London face stagnant house price growth until 2020, according to research that cites uncertainty over Brexit as a key limiting factor on the housing market. The rate of annual growth in the prime country market has averaged less than 1% since mid-2016, compared to up to 5% in the mainstream UK market.
Financial Times (12/10/2018)
Plans for a new urban district in London's Canary Wharf featuring 3,600 homes have been revealed. The development, called Wood Wharf, is expected to create 20,000 new jobs and be completed by 2023. It is overseen by Canary Wharf Group, which is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority - the country's sovereign wealth fund. The scheme was approved by Tower Hamlets Council in 2014, which described its design as "innovative." A spokesman for CWG said the company had been "focusing on detailed building design and managing the infrastructure requirements for a development of this scale" since then. The development will involve homes - a quarter of which will be affordable, shops, new parks, offices, a GP surgery, leisure centre and restaurant, as well as a two-form primary school for 420 children, spread over 23 acres.