June 14, 2016
JLL survey claims occupiers and investors think voters will shun Brexit 0
According to a new survey from JLL of top international corporate occupiers and UK-based investors into their business attitudes to the EU referendum, 80 percent held the view that the UK will vote to remain in the EU. The survey claims that investors are less fearful of impact of Brexit on their long term property strategies than corporate occupiers and that the London office market is viewed as the property sector that would be most impacted by a vote to leave. The survey also revealed attitudes of corporates and investors to future property market decisions in the event of a Brexit. 60 percent of the investors surveyed felt that there would be no changes to their property strategy in the short or long term as a result of a leave vote. Only 30 percent expect reduced allocations in UK property. Of the corporate occupiers surveyed, almost half foresaw they would need to review their UK business space in both the short or long term.
May 5, 2016
The problems that come with London’s success need better solutions 0
by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Cities, Comment
We might all welcome London’s success as a thriving centre of commerce and culture, but this comes at a price and we need to look for a better balance than we currently see between London and the rest of the UK. Of course London is often the main victim of its own success. Its thriving tech and creative firms continue to spill out of the incubator districts created for them to find cheaper and more appropriate spaces in which to grow. In doing so they are pushing up rents in such unlikely nearby places as Croydon. In the traditional business districts in the City and Docklands, the capital’s tech giants are now able to compete for the first time for some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. To cope with demand, the Mayor is rubberstamping tall buildings like never before, many of them bloody awful, unloved by Londoners and heritage organisations alike, transforming the skyline and creating windswept, arid tundra at their feet.
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