A stay of execution; businesses are bracing themselves for a May increase in interest rates seeing the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) decision to hold the rate at 5.25 per cent for the third month running as merely a “stay of execution”. But the leading employers’ groups including the CBI (Confederation of British Industry), the EEF, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors all said that there was strong possibility of a rise next month after the Bank of England had completed its quarterly health check on the economy. Richard Lambert (pictured right), director-general of the CBI, said: “there are signs of renewed vigour in the economy, with continued growth in consumer spending, which means that a rate rise is not out of the question next month”. Since the last MPC meeting, the annual inflation rate rose from 2.7 per cent to 2.8 per cent taking it further from Gordon Brown’s two per cent target. Although the Bank believes inflation will drop back during 2007 as last year’s hefty increases in energy bills are not repeated, a sizeable minority of City analysts had been expecting a rate increase in April. They cited evidence that firms were passing on higher costs to customers and the strength of the housing market as reasons for the MPC to press for dearer borrowing. Guardian 06.04.07
‘Property market will fall in 2008’; according to the Daily Telegraph and the Lombard Street Research Housing Affordability Index, the housing market is heading for a fall next year with property prices reaching the worst level of unaffordability since the end of the large major crash. The research shows that the average mortgage rate has now reached seven per cent, whilst disposable incomes rose at the slowest rate in 25 years in 2006. Diana Choyleva (pictured left) of Lombard Street Research said: “We are now clearly at the end of the house price boom. We think there will be a correction next year, although it is unlikely to be as severe as the last crash.” Further information - Click here Daily Telegraph 02.04.07
House prices slow but fall is unlikely; in contrast, a review of current housing market trends in the FT says that even though there was no rise in interest rates this month, most commentators agree that previous increases are now slowing down the housing market. The Halifax reported that prices only rose by one per cent in March whilst City analysts still expect a rise to 5.5 per cent next month which will see prices moderating further. However many observers believe that a shortage of houses will support the current level of house prices. David Stubbs, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says: “There has been a 25 per cent increase in house-building between 2001 and 2006 in England. However we need a further 40 per cent to satisfy the projected growth in household numbers.” Other factors include the cost of moving which, according to propertyfinder.com, has tripled in the past ten years to £9,486 whilst an ageing population also means there are more retired home owners with little incentive to move. Stubbs forecasts that house prices will rise by six to seven per cent this year - depending on the number of interest rate rises. He goes on,”Unless we solve the housing problem… prices will continue to rise. We are a million miles away from falling house prices in this country”. Financial Times 07.04.07
New property millionaires double in one year; according to research by Halifax Estate Agents nearly a third of all communities in England and Wales now boast million-pound houses. The number of properties that changed hands for seven-figure sums reached 7,076, almost double that of 2005. One significant trend is the rise of such sales in the north of England where the 2006 total was 1,055 compared to 224 in 2004. Further information - Click here Times 07.04.07
Over 50s own 80 per cent of UK’s wealth; a study by Friends Provident shows that the over-50s now have £8 out of every £10 in the economy. Their situation has been reached through reaching the peak of their career on the back of unprecedented economic prosperity, buoyed by decades of rising house prices. By contrast, younger people are burdened by huge mortgages, high levels of personal debt and the threat of reduced pensions that will leave them impoverished in their own retirement. Further information - Click here Evening Standard 06.04.07
Home Office to split into two entities; after weeks of speculation the Prime Minister has given the go-ahead to split the Home Office into two and to give significant new counter-terrorism powers to John Reid (pictured right). Under the new arrangements the Home Office will become, in effect a ministry for national security under Reid and there will be a European-style ministry of justice under the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer. The new powers gained by Reid include chairing a weekly meeting on counter-terrorism activities, which will bring together the relevant Whitehall departments and intelligence agencies. Second, the Home Secretary will have a significant say in funding priorities for Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. The new arrangements will take effect on 8th May - the day that power sharing will start in Northern Ireland. Allies of Gordon Brown said that he was relaxed about the announcement and that the over-arching role for Reid was near to the holistic approach to counter-terrorism that he had in mind. The government could revisit the new arrangements after October’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Further information - Click here Financial Times 29.03.07
Poverty figures increase after years of decline; poverty has increased for the first time in nearly a decade and the number of children living in poor families has risen for the first time in six years according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. Official figures show that relative poverty - those living on less than 60 per cent of average incomes - rose to 12.7 million people in 2005-6 from 12.1 million the year before. It brings to an end the longest period of falling poverty since records began in 1961. The number of children living in poor families rose by 200,000 to 3.8 million. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the rise in poverty was due to the fact that tax credits and benefits rose less quickly than average earnings last year. As increases were modest this year and would be next, it added, poverty may get worse before it gets better. Luke Sibieta (pictured right), Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) economist, said: “The latest poverty and inequality figures will make grim reading for the chancellor. Today’s figures suggest that if the squeeze on public spending announced last week limits Mr Brown’s capacity to play Robin Hood over the next few years, poverty and inequality may return to an upward trend and his child poverty target will drift further out of reach.” Brown announced £1bn more in tax credits in last month’s budget, which experts think will lift 200,000 children out of poverty. However that will only be 20 per cent of the one million target by 2010. The IFS say that government would need to spend an extra £4bn by 2010 to achieve its target although Jim Murphy, the employment minister, said that the new strategy was about getting more parents into jobs. Further information - Click here Guardian 28.03.07
Asylum seekers should be allowed to work; a report on poverty produced by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust found hundreds of asylum seekers suffering from destitution and living in “appalling and inhumane” conditions on the street after their claims were refused. The report, which was co-written by Sayeeda Warsi, Vice Chair of the Conservative Party, says that asylum seekers should be given special licences to allow them to work and contribute to society. Further information - Click here Guardian 28.03.07
New £30m fund for community-led organisations; the Cabinet Office has launched a consultation on its plans for a new £30m fund to help community-led organisations own and run under-used local authority buildings. There is a 12-week consultation finishing on 22nd June whose findings will feed into the final criteria to be used by the fund, which will be launched later this year. It has also been announced that the fund will be administered by the Big Lottery Fund. Further information - Click here Regeneration 06.04.07
Globalisation is giving birth to a new form of multinational; the Economist looks at the new shape of multinational companies that is emerging from globalisation. It is not just opening new markets to rich-world companies, it has also given birth to a pack of fast-moving, sharp-toothed new multinationals. Indian and Chinese firms are now starting to give their rich-world rivals a run for their money. The newcomers have some advantages over the old firms. They are unencumbered by the accumulated legacies of their rivals. They can be more agile and do not have to weigh the opinions of thousands of highly-paid staff. Because their prospects seem better, Western multinationals often find their best employees leave for local rivals once they are trained. However the Economist argues that the newcomers’ advantages are not overwhelming. Take the issue of ethics where rich-world managers fear they will engage in a race to the bottom. Yet the evidence is that companies harmonise up not down. The question is how to make these count. Sam Palmisano (pictured left), IBM’s boss, foresees nothing less than the redesign of the multinational company. Economist 07.04.07
IBM redesigns the multinational; according to Sam Palmisano multinationals began when 19th century firms set up sales offices abroad for goods shipped from factories at home. Firms later created smaller “Mini Me” versions of the parent company across the world. Now he wants to piece together worldwide operations, putting different activities wherever they are done best, paying no heed to arbitrary geographical boundaries. That is why, for example, IBM now has over 50,000 employees in India and ambitious plans for further expansion there. The head of procurement has been moved from New York to Shenzen in China. Palmisano concedes that this will be the work of at least a generation and that rich-country multinationals may struggle to shed nationalistic cultures. Today only General Electric (GE) seems to be able to train its recruits to think of themselves as GE people first and Indians, Chinese or Americans second. Lenovo, the former IBM personal computer business sold to a Chinese multinational, has recently appointed an American to be its chief executive based in Singapore. Economist 07.04.07
Business urged to capitalise on blogs and social networking; a study by Microsoft of web users in eight countries shows that Britons are among Europe’s most opinionated web users and the most likely to share their views. Microsoft warns companies not to fight the tide of internet comment produced by bloggers and social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Bebo. The study cites the success of Dove, a Unilever brand, and Nike sportswear in using web marketing to engage with consumers. Further information - Click here Financial Times 05.04.07
Network Rail to double spending; Network Rail has announced that it will come close to doubling its spending in the next two years on measures aimed at relieving overcrowding by lengthening platforms, increasing the number of tracks and improving signalling. However, many observers said that much of the spending had been committed as long ago as 2003. Rupert Brennan Brown, a veteran rail industry observer, said that the announcement was not so much jam tomorrow as yesterday’s tea. Only decisions on big projects such as the £3.6bn Thameslink route would make a real difference to rail overcrowding. The biggest items in the announcement are £500m in the present financial year and £230m next year for the last parts of the West Coast main line modernisation. Other projects include £15m for a new platform at King’s Cross, £78m for the Thameslink station at St Pancras and £109m for Olympic schemes in east London. Further information -Network Rail Financial Times 04.04.07, Guardian 04.04.07
Rogers says Georgians did it better; Lord Rogers (pictured left) has hit out at modern-day standards of architecture saying that they fell short of the standards set by the Georgians. He said that as a result British cities were not as enjoyable to live in as they had been 200 years ago. He went on: “the battle is to get cities as a whole up to the standards that Georgian cities used to be at with their tree-lined avenues, wonderful squares and great windows overlooking garden areas. It’s the coherent sense of space that you get with Holland Park and Belgravia or the Victorian Notting Hill. These are wonderfully planned”. He cited Barcelona and Copenhagen as cities that had achieved a contemporary “unity of purpose” comparable to the clean lines, dynamic streets and restful spaces of the wealthier parts of Georgian London. Modern London had only stretches that were surprisingly successful, such as the South Bank from Westminster Bridge to the Docks. On the other hand he described Thames Gateway as “pretty disappointing”. Lord Rogers was speaking after he was revealed as the winner of this year’s Pritzker Prize, regarded as architecture’s equivalent of a Nobel prize. Times 29.03.07
World’s crumbling cities need $40 trillion upgrade; a report produced by senior consultants at Booz Allen Hamilton says that cities around the world need to invest $40 trillion to upgrade inadequate or out-of-date infrastructure or risk losing their workforce to locations with better services. It cites the London drought last year and the nine-day blackout across the Queens area of New York as examples of how fragile and antiquated basic infrastructure is becoming in some of the world’s leading cities. With 50 per cent of the world’s population expected to be living in urban areas by 2050, cities that do not invest in improving infrastructure risk losing the brightest and the hardest working to other locations. It advocates a new approach to integrate finance, technology, governance and design. The private sector has to take the lead in the financing, pricing and ownership of infrastructure improvements, while governments should encourage collaboration and competition within a project. Amsterdam’s Schipol airport is given as an example of the public/private partnership that is needed. Further information - Click here Independent 07.04.07
Professional exodus hitting most UK cities; an exodus of highly skilled people from more than half of the UK’s cities is increasing the class divide and putting weaker cities’ economies at risk according to a soon-to-be published academic report by Professor Tony Champion (pictured right) of Newcastle University. The report into migration between 27 city-regions, which is based on the 2001 Census, says that economically weaker regions such as Sheffield, Nottingham and Birmingham are losing a greater proportion of higher managerial and professional workers than any other occupational group. For every ten highly skilled people leaving Nottingham only six arrive, compared to over nine low skilled workers migrating in for every ten that leave. However London saw 13 professional or managerial workers arrive for every ten leaving. Only four of the 26 cities paralleled London in having more skilled workers coming in than moving out. Further information - Click here Regeneration 06.04.07
Can the state create social entrepreneurs? Following the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford Alison Benjamin (pictured left), the deputy editor of Society Guardian, ponders on the role of the state in creating social entrepreneurs. She says that Jeff Skoll, the co-founder of eBay and now a self-styled social enterprise champion, cheered the audience by telling them that whilst Britney Spears had a 75 per cent increase in Google hits during the year, hits for Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, which invests in leading social entrepreneurs doubled. However the question on everyone’s lips was how to expand the number and size of social enterprises. The problem in the UK is that whilst the government is keen to contract out chunks of public services to socially driven or ethically driven not-for-profit businesses, there are not many social entrepreneurs around. Ed Miliband, the minister for the third sector, said: “Government doesn’t create the inspiration for social enterprise, but it can help or hinder what they do”. However, Benjamin argues, if not enough social entrepreneurs are coming from the grassroots to deliver the government’s agenda there is a temptation for the government to create its own. Initial findings from a survey of three state-sponsored social enterprises in the south of England show that initially the two-year projects floundered but by the end of the torturous process two of them were financially viable. But while the state sponsor had a fixed idea of what it wanted to create, the sponsoring organisations, including a local authority, a housing association and a prison, resisted this and created their own more sustainable solutions. Guardian 04.04.07
Minister urges investor education; speaking at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Ed Miliband (pictured right) said that the social enterprise movement had to change the way people think about business in order to attract vital investment. He instanced the case of Paige Allen, a Surrey-based social entrepreneur, who appeared on Dragon’s Den seeking backing for her business to promote healthy eating for children. Miliband says that the dragons refused to invest because: “All the dragons who were interviewing her didn’t get it all. They said: ‘There’s business and there’s charity and the two things are separate. Next contestant please’. The minister went on: ‘That indicates how much further we’ve got to go in changing perceptions about what social business is and what it can achieve’.” Last year, Cabinet Office research showed that only a quarter of Britons know what social enterprise is. An action plan published by the department last year contained plans to put social enterprise on the school curriculum. Regeneration 06.04.07
Screening of new regulations to be overhauled; a new system of “impact assessments” has been announced by the Cabinet Office so that they are simpler and more transparent and will begin at the earliest stage of policy-making. Proposals to introduce regulations will be scrutinised more carefully to ensure that they are necessary and do not impose excessive costs on companies. The announcement comes as the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) has claimed that Whitehall departments have failed to follow screening rules for regulatory impact assessments. The BCC report says that more than half the assessments had not considered whether doing nothing was a better option. Whitehall departments almost invariably failed to quantify the impact on small and medium-sized businesses, as required by the Better Regulation Executive. Further information - Click here Financial Times 02.04.07
Online advertising share overtakes newspapers; advertising spending online in 2006 overtook spending on newspapers for the first time. According to data from the Internet Advertising Bureau there was a 41 per cent leap in online revenues to £2.016bn representing 11.4 per cent of all advertising revenues. This is the highest proportion in the world with the US figure at 7-7.5 per cent and the global average at 5.8 per cent. As advertisers rushed online to target Britain’s 31 million web users there was a 4.7 per cent drop in television revenues and a barely discernible rise of 0.2 per cent in newspaper advertising. The total for press advertising was £1.9bn or 10.9 per cent of the total. Further information - Click here Guardian 28.03.07
Supermarkets eclipse pharmacies; the advance of the supermarkets into the world of general merchandise has been underlined by the news that four out of the top five sellers of medicines and beauty products are supermarkets and not high street specialists. Stores like Superdrug, Lloydspharmacy and The Body Shop have been eclipsed as the four biggest supermarkets - Tesco, Asda, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison - have taken a 45 per cent share of the £14.9bn health and beauty market - an increase of 12.2 per cent of market share in the past five years. Financial Times 05.04.07
‘Private equity deals more likely to add jobs than axe them’; analysis by the FT of the 30 largest private equity deals concluded during 2003 and 2004 shows that the industry is in fact more likely to add jobs than axe them. In contrast to union allegations the FT finds that the companies have added 36,000 jobs to the 141,000 staff they employed when they were bought. In at least one case, Fitness First, the extra jobs were as a result of overseas expansion whilst others were by acquisition as private equity owners have built on their original investment. However employment under private equity ownership has also been boosted by organic growth. Union critics have pointed out that jobs have still been lost in just under half the deals although the scale of individual losses has been low. However private equity owners point out that staff reductions in just over half the cases were due mainly to subsequent sales of subsidiaries and assets. Financial Times 02.04.07
New EU migrants could be eroding pay levels; Lord Turner (pictured left), former chairman of the Low Pay Commission and author of the government’s report on pensions, has warned that the influx of immigrants into the EU from the ten eastern European accession countries may be pushing down wages amongst low-paid workers leading to a rise in unemployment among unskilled workers. Lord Turner told the Prime Minister’s conference on the role of work in the 21st century that the latest evidence suggested that migrants were beginning to push down wages at the lower end of the income scale. They were displacing some less skilled workers, making it more difficult to persuade some of the long-term unemployed to seek work - partly because the immigrant workers were more willing to work unlawfully for less than the minimum wage. The influx may also make it more difficult to increase the level of the minimum wage in the future. Further information - Click here Guardian 30.03.07
Hutton tries to close the ‘revolving door’ of New Deal; the government plans to toughen up its New Deal scheme to prevent jobless people using it as a “soft option” to avoid losing their benefits. To receive Jobseeker’s Allowance, unemployed people over 25 have to take part in New Deal if they have been unemployed for 18 months or for 18-to-24-year-olds it is six months. Government research shows that more than two-thirds of new claims for the Jobseeker’s Allowance are made by people who have claimed before. About half the repeat claimants spend more time on benefit than in work. Mr Hutton (pictured right), who commissioned the report from David Freud, an investment baker, which proposes an overhaul of the system aimed at the hardcore unemployed and single parents, wants a more flexible “new New Deal” to take account of the fast-changing labour market. Taking up one of Freud’s ideas he intends to use private and voluntary groups to target the long-term jobless. He also wants to tackle a 1.1 million-strong group of young people who have fallen the net and become dubbed “Neets”- not in education, employment or training. Independent 06.04.07
Tesco joins job share scheme to help women; Durham Constabulary, the Royal Mail and Tesco are amongst the organisations being given government funding to develop high-quality, part-time posts designed to ensure women workers who opt to reduce their hours do not end up falling off their career track and seeing their earning power plummet. Ruth Kelly (pictured left), the women’s minister, said that the new Quality Part Time Work Fund would “kickstart the process of enabling more women to work part-time in senior posts. The part-time pay gap is still too wide. As things stand, working part-time is concentrated in low-paid jobs and junior grades”. Under the scheme, which stems from the report of the Independent Women and Work Commission, employers must match-fund their grants and share the lessons learned with other businesses. Further information - Click here Guardian 02.04
Protests grow against ending of free English lessons for migrants; protests against the government’s decision to scrap the first come first served free provision of English as a second language in further education (FE) colleges have gained some surprising allies. As well as unions, charities and FE professionals, voices that have joined the opposition include Michael Higgins, chairman of the Audit Commission, and Sir Digby Jones (pictured right), the government’s own skills envoy and former director-general of the CBI. Commenting on the plans to limit access to ESOL courses Sir Digby said: “This is a damaging, retrograde step in the nation’s pursuit of an integrated, productive workforce”. The plans are a response to the massive increase in the demand for ESOL courses where from 2000 to 2005 ESOL provision has trebled from 160,000 to 480,000 students enrolled. But demand has outstripped supply and in some parts of the country there are now two year waiting lists. Under the new proposals to qualify for free training, migrant workers and their spouses will have to be claiming benefits or working tax credit. Asylum-seekers will be barred from funding for their first six months in the country. Independent 05.04.07
Parents must help boys to take education seriously; launching a charter Born to be Great to promote achievement amongst Afro-Caribbean boys the National Union of Teachers (NUT) calls on parents to take more responsibility for their children’s education and urge them to take it seriously. The NUT says that black Caribbean boys are the lowest-achieving ethnic group in England and must be lured away from a culture that was causing mayhem on the streets. The NUT also calls on the government to undertake an inquiry into the impact of street culture on society. Last summer only 23 per cent of black Caribbean boys achieved five A*-C GCSEs, including maths and English compared to a national average of 44 per cent. Times 09.04.07
43,000 pupils are absent every day; the latest official figures for truancy show that hundreds of thousands of teenagers are missing a fifth of school every year even though more than a billion pounds has been spent on anti-truancy initiatives. They show that seven per cent, or 43,000, of pupils are hard-core absentees who missed school for at least one day every week through truancy, sickness or holidays. The figures, which show that girls are more likely to be absent than boys, were 18 per cent higher than suggested by previous statistics. White or mixed-race pupils were more likely to skip class, as were travellers’ children and pupils from poorer homes. The lowest absence rates were among ethnic minorities and those who spoke English as a second language. The absence rate rises with each year, resulting in Year 11 (16-year-olds) playing truant the most (2.43 per cent), four times higher than Year 7, where the rate was 0.58 per cent. The Department of Education and Skills is paying for more than 400 schools with high levels of persistent absence to use a new text-message alert system as a tool to combat truancy. Starting this week, heads will be able to impose parenting orders without having to go through local authorities. Academies and city technology colleges had the highest proportion of “persistent absences” with nine per cent of those enrolled, compared to seven per cent overall. Further information - Click here Times 30.03.07
Teachers call for vocational diploma to be scrapped; the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has called for the introduction of vocational diplomas to be scrapped because it will not provide young people with qualifications of real value. The NUT conference in Harrogate also said that not enough time was being allowed for the introduction of the diplomas in 2010. Fourteen specialised diplomas are being drawn up by business groups in subjects such as hospitality, beauty and information technology. Ken Boston (pictured right), chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, has described the diplomas, which are supposed to have the same value as GCSE and A-level, as one of the world’s most significant education reforms. They are also seen as a key element in the government’s plans to keep young people in education or training until 18. However there has been growing unease across the education world at the speed at which they are being introduced and even Alan Johnson, the education secretary, admitted last month that the plans could go “horribly wrong”. Further information - Click here Financial Times 09.04.07
UN issues stark warning on climate change; the world must begin to adapt to the effects of climate change urgently or face a bill for many millions of dollars and a heavy toll in human suffering within a few decades according to scientists compiling the second of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. They say that actions to adapt to climate change, such as sea defences and new forms of agriculture, should take precedence over efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, which would take years to have any impact. For the first time the world’s leading scientists agreed there was clear evidence that climate change was occurring across the globe. And, contrary to expectations that climate change would not be felt for a generation, they found that serious effects, such as drought in Africa, were already happening. A third section of the report, which will make recommendations on how to reduce greenhouse gases, will be launched in Bangkok in May. Further information - Click here Financial Times 06.04.07
UK carbon emissions actually going up not down; the latest statistics for UK greenhouse gas emissions show that emissions form power stations, motor vehicles and cars increased to 6.4m tones in 2006. The 1.15 per cent increase means that Britain’s emissions are now at the highest level since Labour came to power in 1997. The news was greeted with concern in Whitehall and with anger and scorn by environmentalists and opposition politicians. They said that the government was clearly not on course for meeting its target of cutting CO² by 30 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050 (it has been admitted that the longstanding target of a 20 per cent cut by 2010 will not be met). David Miliband (pictured right), environment secretary, acknowledged the concern: “While these figure are provisional, they underline why concerted efforts to tackle climate change, both from government and wider society, is absolutely critical”. His department said that one of the reasons for the rise in emissions was the switch from natural gas to coal for electricity generation during the year. High international gas prices had led big power stations to move to cheaper coal, which is much more carbon-intensive. Further information - Click here Independent 05.04.07
EU climate change goals will cost €1 trillion; McKinseys study claims that the EU’s new climate change goals will cost up to €1.1 trillion to implement over the next 14 years. The study paints a daunting picture of the EU’s plans to decrease greenhouse gases by 20 per cent by 2020. It argues that both economically and technically it is feasible but that the political effort necessary will be immense. A Cost Curve for Greenhouse Gas Reduction offers a detailed breakdown of the potential costs of reducing carbon emissions across different sectors, from forestry to transportation. The study says that technology, such as energy-saving light bulbs and wind power is capable of reducing three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions. The study recommends politicians concentrate on implementing the cheapest and most cost-effective measures first, rather than the cost-heavy solutions such as building CO²-free coal power stations. Calling for greater focus on insulation it says that it is easier and cheaper to reduce energy use than to capture and store by-products of fossil fuels. For example, insulating a building could save €150 for each tonne of carbon dioxide reduced. One of the biggest challenges will be in the developing world, which produces half of the avoidable global CO² emissions. For instance Africa and South America could contribute through cutting back on deforestation. The study criticises the EU for concentrating on reducing emissions in electricity generation, which has the potential to lower its emissions by 6bn tonnes by 2030 when improved management in the forestry industry could save 7m tones. Further information - Click here Guardian 28.03.07
‘Put green warnings on flight adverts’; the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has called for ads for flights, holidays and cars to carry tobacco-style health warnings to combat the public’s “addiction” to polluting transport and reduce climate change. The IPPR also calls for carbon offsetting charges to be included in fares and for cars to be labelled according to their green credentials. Further information - Click here Independent 05.04.07
Effectiveness of EU carbon trading scheme is queried; Europe’s big polluters pumped more climate-changing gases into the atmosphere in 2006 than during the previous year, according to figures which suggest that the EU carbon trading system is failing to deliver curbs. The figures relate to carbon produced in 22 nations by big industrial users that account for 93 per cent of all emissions reported in 2005. The EU said that carbon output from these sources rose by 1-1.5 per cent in 2006. The statistics also suggest that the EU is still allocating too many carbon permits to enable the system to work properly. In 2005 the European Commission allowed member states to produce three per cent more CO² than they needed. In 2006 the gap was closer to one per cent partly because of the amount of carbon produced. Only Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Britain gave businesses too few permits in 2006. An EU spokesman said that the scheme would prove effective in the second stage of its life from 2008-12. Further information - Click here Independent 03.04.07
Garden chain drops patio heaters; the Wyevale garden centre chain is to stop selling gas-powered patio heaters, which consume enough energy in an hour to make 400 cups of tea. The move follows a long campaign by environmental groups because of the damage they do to the environment. The Market Transformation Programme estimates that there could be as many as 12,500 patio heaters in UK pubs and restaurants and 630,000 in household gardens. It said that the household heaters alone could produce a total of 140,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Wyevale is the first company in the DIY sector to introduce such a ban. Curry’s, the electrical store, have announced that they are phasing out the sale of incandescent light bulbs. Guardian 06.04.07
Why have so many French moved to London? the migration of young French to London has become a subject of discussion in the French Presidential election and in many newspapers and magazines including the front page of Time’s European edition. Agnès Poirier, a French journalist based in London, writing in the New Statesman says that you can agree that France is exceptional and point to the fact that Paris attracts 26 million tourists an year compared to London’s 11 million. However, London is now the seventh largest French city, and the French have become the new immigrants. Even if only a small proportion of the overall population has left France - 3.3 per cent compared to 12 per cent of Italians, eight per cent of Japanese and six per cent of Germans - the trend over the past few years has picked up at a rate never seen before, especially among the young. Of the 150,000 French people living in London the average age is 29. For many young French people, London stands for dynamism, excitement, audacity, and the idea that everything is possible. Protected and looked after from an early age by the mother state, French youth has never been used to living dangerously. In London, and in Britain in general, they can take risks, perhaps because they do not have any choice. According to the French consulate in 2004 they had to help repatriate 300 young French people who “couldn’t adapt to the harshness of the Anglo-Saxon lifestyle”. But 34 per cent of the French living in London work in the City. To them, London is the face of globalisation, the centre of a neocapitalism that is purely speculative and financial. New Statesman 09.04.07
City drives 13-year high building boom; new buildings are springing up in London and the south east at the fastest rate for more than a decade thanks largely to boom times in the City according to the latest building survey by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). David Stubbs, senior economist at RICS, said that the strength of London’s financial services sector was the main factor behind the construction boom. He went on: “Many companies are beefing up their London offices, moving services that were previously headquartered in New York and other financial centres to the capital. And with the price of commercial property soaring it is very tempting for the construction industry to build more office space”. The square mile is attracting investors because a shortage of space is pushing up rents while Ken Livingstone is encouraging more skyscrapers to make a better use of limited space. The tallest new building will be Renzo Piano’s 1,016-foot Shard of Glass (pictured right) to be built on the South Bank and to be completed by 2011. Other developments in the pipeline include the Leadenhall Tower, or Cheese Grater, and the Broadgate Tower and 201 Bishopsgate scheme, which are on course to open next year. Stubbs added that the 2012 Olympics should keep the building bonanza going with plans for 160,000 new homes in the Thames Gateway. Further information - Click here Independent 04.04.07
FSA to investigate foreign listings; the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has given the first recognition of intensifying City concern about the impact some overseas listings are having on the standards and reputation of London as a financial centre. It will canvass opinions in the City about how to clarify the regulations to make clear whether companies have chosen light-touch listing methods, which can offer investors less protection. It said that it was calling for a formal debate about the balance between attracting new flotations and maintaining quality. The decision came a day after John Thain, chief executive of the newly merged NYSE Euronext exchange group, took a thinly veiled swipe at the London Stock Exchange, criticising corporate governance and inadequate protection for minority investors offered by some Russian companies. There has been a steady flow of Russian and Kazakh companies seeking to raise capital in London. In February, a group of leading investors warned the FSA the quality of the market was under threat. Further information - Click here Financial Times 05.04.07
Californian IT companies head to London; a record number of 25 Californian information technology companies, including Google, MySpace and Bebo, have opened offices in London during 2006 making them the largest identifiable grouping within the total of 250 foreign direct investments. The number exceeds the 183 investment projects that came in during the dotcom boom in 2000. The US as a whole accounted for 54 per cent compared to ten per cent from India and seven per cent from Canada, the next biggest investors. In response to the influx Think London, the capital’s foreign direct investment agency, has opened an office in San Francisco, in addition to those in New York and Beijing. The size of the investment vary with Google UK showing rapid growth so that it now employs hundreds of people and runs a significant part of its mobile and wireless development work out of its huge office complex in Victoria. On the other hand Bebo employs one person as does Sling Media, the video-streaming company. However MySpace was set up with three managers in January 2006 but now has 55 people based at its offices in Soho. Further information - Click here Financial Times 09.04.07
Budget under control says 2012 chairman; the industrialist responsible for the London 2012 Olympics construction project has said that although costs will continue to soar over the next five years the final costs will probably be less than the £9.3bn announced by the government. Sir Roy McNulty (pictured right), acting chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), was giving an interview to mark the end of the first year of the project. He said that they had been “fast out of the blocks” and had hit all the main milestones. Discussing the £2.7bn contingency fund, which has been described as “breathtakingly ridiculous” by Ken Livingstone, Sir Roy said that he did not think the construction industry would see it as an encouragement to inflate costs. He said; “We expect that there will be vigorous competition for most of the contracts. It isn’t a big book of blank cheques just waiting for us to use. I think there is a very high likelihood we will live within the £9.3bn figure”. The ODA had also studied the lessons of Wembley stadium and he pointed to the success of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, which was built by the same team building the Olympic stadium. Guardian 02.04.07
CABE queries viability of the Olympic media centre; serious doubts have been raised about the viability of proposals for a permanent 1.3m sq ft structure to house the media at the 2012 Games. The intention is that the developer would own the centre and then find another user for it after the Games is over. Design watchdog CABE have questioned “the scale, orientation and layout” of the proposed centre and its “sustainability” once the Games are over. The Olympic Delivery Authority advertised for potential developers in March. One source advocated building a tent to house the media centre, which could be pulled down after the Games. CABE are reasonably happy about EDAW’s masterplan for the Olympic Park which it deems a “robust basis for futuredevelopment”. However it is known to be frustrated about the slow progress on the plans for the adjacent Stratford City. Estates Gazette 07.04.07
Key landmark reached; a key landmark in the plans for the Olympic Park has been reached with the completion of the first underground tunnels on the 500-acre site, which will be used for power supply. This will enable building to begin next summer. To mark the event the Olympic Delivery Authority published a list of 10 targets to be achieved by the start of the 2008 Games in Beijing. Clearing and cleaning the site is the first target followed by buildings, roads and bridges to be completed; installation of water and energy systems to have started; regeneration of waterways to have started; construction of the bridge to take people over the aquatic centre to the main stadium to have started; construction of the Olympic Village to be well under way; and contracts to have been placed for the four main venues and work to have started on the venues outside London. Further information - Click here Independent 05.04.07
ODA resists raised green targets; David Higgins (pictured right), chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has told Regeneration magazine that it will not bow to pressure from the Mayor to raise environmental standards for the construction of the 2012 Games facilities. He says that the organisation’s sustainability strategy, published in January, was the result of six months consultation. “We’re not going to raise the target now - we’re going to get on with the job”. Two weeks ago Livingstone told the London Assembly: “If they do not [come back with an improved plan] I will join you in making sure that they do”. Livingstone is a member of the four-strong board overseeing the Games. Regeneration 06.04.07
Arts world threatens boycott of Olympics; the arts world is threatening to withdraw co-operation from the Olympic Games as it fights cuts implemented by the culture secretary. The Times says hat it has obtained figures which show the reduction in lottery funds for the arts since Labour came to power: from £356m in 1997 to £275m in 2006. This will drop further after TessaJowell (pictured left) sanctioned a £675m raid on “good causes” to pay for the 2012 Games. The criticism is being led by Peter Hewitt, chief executive of the Arts Council England. He said that the £63m hole in his budget from 2009 would affect the arts at every level in every corner of England. The criticism comes only weeks after Tony Blair made a speech at the Tate Modern when he heralded a “golden age of the arts” since Labour came to power. The Times says privately ministers say that the arts had ten good years and must face a squeeze to pay for the Olympics. Times 09.04.07
Luxury flats planned for Regents’ Park; residential developer Oakmayne Properties has established a joint venture with Matterhorn Capital to develop luxury residential schemes around Regents’ Park. The flagship project will be the conversion of British Land’s former head offices and nine other buildings in Cornwall Terrace. Matterhorn bought the British Land building last June for £50m. The joint venture want the Grade 1-listed Nash terrace to rival Candy & Candy’s One Hyde Park. The £135m scheme will comprise six double-fronted town houses, some exceeding 10,000 sq ft, and six lateral flats, all with park views. The new company will also take over two other Matterhorn schemes: the 140-unit redevelopment of the former EDF site on St John’s Wood Road, and a 90-flat scheme on Avenue Road in Primrose Hill. Oakmayne is also developing the 216-flat Oakmayne Plaza at the Elephant & Castle; and 15 houses on the site of the old Saatchi Gallery in St John’s Wood. Estates Gazette 31.03.07
Mayor pushes for energy institute for Battersea Power Station; Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is pushing for the new owners of Battersea Power Station to drop plans for a leisure-led scheme and to use the site for a £1bn energy research institution. Plans for an Energy Technologies Institute, which will look at ways to reduce CO² emissions, were launched by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in September with a location to be chosen by the summer. Rob Davies, development director at Battersea owner Treasury Holdings, said: “We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this idea with the government”. Treasury has selected the 63-year-old Uruguayan architect Rafael Violy to produce the master plan. The aim is to produce an “intrinsic, sustainable district of London” within a mixed-use development. When Treasury bought the site they said that they wanted to significantly increase the number of homes being developed on the site. Estates Gazette 31.03.07, 07.04.07
Euston station to be redeveloped; Euston station is to be demolished to make way for a modernist glass and steel structure following the commitment by British Land to spend £1bn on developing the site. Network Rail said that the ramped and dingy surroundings would be transformed into a light and airy thoroughfare for the 55 million passengers who use the station each year. British Land said that the improvements, which may include increasing the number of platforms from 18 to 21, would be funded by unlocking the commercial potential of the site. A source close to the deal said that the total cost would be £1bn of which £250m will be spent on improving the station. The rest will be spent on building a structure to house 200,000 sq metres of mixed-tenure homes, 23,000 sq metres of retail and leisure over three floors; 14,000 sq metres of office space together with 48,000 sq metres of station facilities. Further information - Network Rail Guardian 06.04.07
Revamp for Cannon Street station; Hines, the US developer, is to start work on a £360m revamp of Cannon Street station in the summer. Under a deal with Network Rail Hines UK will fund the improvements to the station and also pay for the upgrading of the underground station. The redevelopment will contain more than 37,100 sq m of office space and 1,500 sq m of retail. Times 06.04.07
Sheikh pays £100m for London’s most expensive flat; Sheikh Hamad, foreign minister of the Gulf State of Qatar, has paid £100m for a penthouse flat at one Hyde Park, making it the most expensive dwelling in London. The previous most expensive was a flat in the same building that went for £84m. The penthouse is the largest of the 86 flats that have been built at one Hyde Park - the former Bowater building in Knightsbridge -, which is still almost two years from completion. A quarter of the flats in the building designed by Richard Rogers have been sold off-plan in the past few weeks. It is thought that each flat has bullet-resistant windows and walls and have their own individual lifts from the underground car park. There is a direct underground passage to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel next door. The penthouse has direct views over Hyde Park. Times 28.03.07
Luxury hotel for Regent Street? the ground lease for the Café Royal building in Regent Street is being put up for sale by the Crown Estate for £80m with the hope that it may be turned into a luxury hotel. The eight-storey, 161,000 sq ft building is currently a meetings and events venue managed by Starwood Hotels and Resorts-owned Le Meridien. The building forms part of the Crown’s £500m Quadrant redevelopment scheme as well as being integral to the general uplift of the street. A number of new retailers have recently moved into Regent Street including Brooks Brothers, Banana Republic and Zara Home. The Crown first submitted a planning application to transform the building into a hotel in 2004, which it withdrew after a year. It intends to submit a new application for a 155-bedrooom luxury hotel later this year. Sources say that several overseas hotel operators are keen to launch their brands in the UK including the Dubai-based Emaar Hotels and Resorts’ Armani hotel chain and Italian fashion house Bvlgari. Estates Gazette 31.03.07
Tate Modern extension gets the go-ahead; Southwark Council has given planning permission for a £215m extension to the Tate Modern. The glass pyramid, which is also being designed by Herzog & de Meuron, will be on the south side of the building. It will provide more space for artwork and will be heavily focused on providing learning opportunities for young people. The Tate Modern is currently attracting five million visitors a year. Further information - Click here Regeneration 30.03.07
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