International real estate advisor Savills has reported that 24 new multiple restaurant brands have opened sites in Leeds over the last four years, with the total rising by 209% to 46 from 22 in 2012.  Led by new entrants including Bill’s, Gusto and Turtle Bay, the number of units occupied by branded restaurants has more than doubled from 25 to 52 during that time. The recent Casual Dining in the UK report from Savills showed that Leeds now has the second highest total supply of branded casual dining restaurants of any place outside of London (only Manchester has more with 78).  Additionally, York ranked 19th in the UK’s top 50 casual dining towns in terms of supply, with 23 branded restaurants.  Harrogate was also among the top 50 towns for best casual dining growth story since 2012. Steve Henderson, retail director at Savills, comments: “The casual dining scene in Leeds has swung from mass market to aspirational, with Busaba Eathai, Friends of Ham, Steve Pilling’s Dockyard, tapas bar 53 Degrees North and renowned chefs including Marco Pierre White all due to open in the city over the next 12 months.  While mass market brands still have their place and perform well, consumers are consistently seeking something different which will drive further growth in branded restaurants in Leeds as well as Yorkshire’s other big towns and cities for the foreseeable future.” Although Italian food and pizza remain the most numerous and popular of casual dining cuisines in the UK, accounting for 45% of branded restaurants nationally, Savills reports that most of these offerings originate from pre-2008.  Since then, there has been a clear shift in trends towards North American, burger and barbecue or steak restaurants, with increases of 80%, 71% and 52% respectively since the financial crisis. Tom Whittington, retail research director at Savills, adds: “The type of casual dining brand expanding rapidly into Leeds has commanded the highest growth in volume of visits and spend per visit of all restaurant types in the UK over the last four to five years.  There is also an ongoing cultural shift in the kinds of food and experience that are sought when dining out, with consumers seeking more aspirational eating choices and a greater range of culinary styles.  As a result, Caribbean, Thai and Mexican brands have all expanded rapidly in the UK since 2012.” Source link

National Association for Safety and Health in Care Services (NASHiCS), Social Care Safety Forum. Date and location Tuesday 10th May 2016, Holiday Inn Cardiff, North M4 Jct32, Merthyr Road Tongwynlais, Cardiff CF15 7LH Forum overview A Forum for those responsible for Health and Safety. Interact with colleagues, hear about key developments including; legal updates, Leadership, Incident response, Regulators approach, Quality Safety Audits, Legionella and Fire Safety. The Health and Safety Executive will be presenting as well as CSSIW, the South Wales Fire Service, lawyers and providers. Come along and keep up to date. Don’t miss out. ! Further information and booking For more Information, programme and booking online visit the NASHiCS event website. Alternatively, email administrator@nashics.org or telephone: 07840160030. Source link

Wellington Pub Company, advised by Savills, has let The Sheepwalk Tavern in Acton. The pub occupies a prominent corner position on Market Place, adjacent to Acton Town Centre Market along the pedestrianised King Street and Saint Mary’s church. The three storey property features a central U shaped bar and two customer entrances. The new tenant, Rogerio Mendes, has agreed a 20-year free of tie lease. Stuart Stares of Savills licensed leisure team, comments: “The Sheepwalk Tavern benefits from a strong location in Acton and is positioned to take advantage of the arrival of Crossrail and the £40m redevelopment of the Oak Shopping Centre with Phase 1 to provide an enlarged shopping mall and 142 residential units.”      Source link

The joint administrators of Greenvale Estates, Simon Wilson and Anne O’Keefe, have instructed international real estate advisor Savills to market Caton Road Business Park in Lancaster for a guide price of £5.9 million.  The mixed-use office and industrial park comprises nine buildings totalling 129,333 sq ft (12,015 sq m) and generates a combined rental income of £870,819.  It is multi-let to five tenants with a weighted average unexpired term certain of 3.75 years. Located on the A683, Caton Road Business Park is just 0.5 miles from Junction 34 of the M6 motorway and forms part of the larger Lansil Way Industrial Estate.  The surrounding area is an established commercial hub with several other business parks, two hotels and numerous leisure amenities. Nick Okell, investment director at Savills, comments: “With a high yield of circa 10% plus a strong tenant line up and opportunities to enhance returns through a number of asset management initiatives, Caton Business Park is likely to prove very attractive to investors.” Source link

The future of European Investment Bank funding for projects in the UK water sector is “unclear” post-Brexit. “The implications for future EIB funding is one of the key issues for water companies following the referendum result,” Water UK head of corporate affairs Neil Dhot told Utility Week. He said the EIB had “repeatedly assured us” that it will continue to consider applications from the UK water sector now and in the two years after Article 50 is triggered. But there are some “big questions” about what will happen after. Dhot asked whether, for example, the UK government will take out its 16 per cent share of the EIB. “If so, what will it do with that money?” he said. “Could it be put into an albeit smaller domestic infrastructure fund for example?” In May, the EIB announced it would lend £700 million to Tideway for its ‘super sewer’ Thames Tideway Tunnel – the largest ever loan for water investment worldwide. Ofwat that, as far as regulated water and wastewater markets are concerned, the fundamentals remain “very much as they were and are sound”, following Brexit. “The independent economic regulatory regime insulates the sector as it has done since privatisation from the effects of political turbulence,” chief executive Cathryn Ross said in a speech to industry delegates. “And in any case the Brexit decision itself doesn’t prompt great changes to the legal and policy framework for the sector.” However, she did warn that a challenge to the sector will be maintaining customer legitimacy as higher inflation, lower interest rates and lower growth hit customers but not necessarily water companies. Source link

Existing home sales in the United States increased in May to their highest pace in almost a decade and median sales prices reached an all-time high. While the uptick in demand this spring amidst lagging supply levels pushed the median sales price to an all-time high, according to the National Association of Realtors®. All major regions except for the Midwest saw strong sales increases last month. Total existing home sales, which are completed transactions that include single family homes, town homes, condominiums and co-ops, were up by 1.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.53 million in May from a downwardly revised 5.43 million in April. The data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shows that with last month’s gain, sales are now up 4.5% from May 2015 and are at their highest annual pace since February 2007. ‘This spring’s sustained period of ultra-low mortgage rates has certainly been a worthy incentive to buy a home, but the primary driver in the increase in sales is more home owners realizing the equity they’ve accumulated in recent years and finally deciding to trade-up or downsize,’ said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. ‘With first time buyers still struggling to enter the market, repeat buyers using the proceeds from the sale of their previous home as their down payment are making up the bulk of home purchases right now,’ he pointed out. ‘Barring further deceleration in job growth that could ultimately temper demand from these repeat buyers, sales have the potential to mostly maintain their current pace through the summer,’ he added. Surpassing the peak median sales price set last June of $236,300) the median existing home price for all housing types in May was $239,700, up 4.7% from May 2015 and the 51st consecutive month of year on year gains. The data also shows that total housing inventory at the end of May rose 1.4% to 2.15 million existing homes available for sale, but is still 5.7% lower than a year ago while unsold inventory is at a 4.7 month supply at the current sales pace, which is unchanged from April. ‘Existing inventory remains subdued throughout much of the country and continues to lag even last year’s deficient amount. While new home construction has thankfully crept higher so far this year, there’s still a glaring need for even more, to help alleviate the supply pressures that are severely limiting choices and pushing prices out of reach for plenty of prospective first time buyers,’ said Yun. The share of first time buyers was 30% in May, down from 32% both in April and a year ago. First time buyers in all of 2015 also represented an average of 30%. Properties typically stayed on the market for 32 days in May compared to 39 days in April, which is below a year ago when it was 40 days and the shortest time since NAR began tracking in May 2011. Short sales were on the market the longest at a median of 103 days in May, while foreclosures sold in 51 days and non-distressed homes took 30 days. Some 49% of homes sold in May were on the market for less than a month, the highest percentage since NAR began tracking.  All cash sales were 22% of transactions in May, down from both 24% in April and a year ago. Individual investors, who account for many cash sales, purchased 13% of homes in May, unchanged from April and down from 14% a year ago and 63% of investors paid cash in May.  Distressed sales, including foreclosures and short sales, fell to 6% of sales in May, down from 7% in April and 10% a year ago. Some 5% of May sales were foreclosures and 1% were short sales. Foreclosures sold for an average discount of 12% below market value in May compared to 17% in April, while short sales were discounted 11% compared to 10% in April. A breakdown of the figures show that single family home sales increased 1.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.90 million in May from 4.81 million in April, and are now 4.7% higher than the 4.68 million pace a year ago. The median existing single family home price was $241,000 in May, up 4.6% from May 2015. Existing condominium and co-op sales rose 1.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 630,000 units in May from 620,000 in April, and are now 3.3% above May 2015 while the median existing condo price was $229,600 in May, 6% above a year ago. May existing home sales in the Northeast increased 4.1% to an annual rate of 770,000, and are now 11.6% above a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $268,600, which is 0.1% below May 2015. In the Midwest, existing home sales dropped 6.5% an annual rate of 1.3 million in May, but are still 3.2% above May 2015. The median price in the Midwest was $190,000, up 4.8% from a year ago. Existing home sales in the South were up 4.6% to an annual rate of 2.28 million in May, and are now 6.5% above May 2015. The median price in the South was $211,500, up 5.9% from a year ago. Existing home sales in the West increased 5.4% to an annual rate of 1.18 million in May, but are still 1.7% lower than a year ago. The median price in the West was $346,900, which is 7.7% above May 2015. Source link

©Bloomberg Coal producers are pressing the UK government to rethink its decision to scrap a £1bn scheme to develop carbon capture and storage technology. The World Coal Association, which represents big miners such as Glencore and Anglo American, has written to Greg Clark, the new business secretary, appealing for support for carbon capture. More On this topic IN UK Politics & Policy Carbon capture technology, which involves capturing emissions from coal and gas power stations before they enter the atmosphere, has been suggested for years as a way to tackle climate change while still burning fossil fuels. Its prospects for adoption in the UK had a setback last year when George Osborne, then chancellor, cancelled a competition in which two carbon capture projects were vying for government backing. The coal industry sees the recent change of leadership in Downing Street and the Treasury, as well as the merging of the energy and business departments, as a chance to put carbon capture back on the agenda. “With a fresh pair of eyes in government, there is an opportunity for the UK to take another look at the issue,” said Benjamin Sporton, chief executive of the industry group. In his letter to Mr Clark, seen by the Financial Times, Mr Sporton wrote that carbon capture was of “critical importance” to the UK’s chances of meeting its CO2 reduction targets and described the withdrawal of government support as “highly regrettable”. The intervention comes at a time of upheaval in UK energy policy after the folding of the Department of Energy and Climate Change into a new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy under Mr Clark. Last month’s decision by Theresa May, prime minister, to put on hold the proposed £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear power station in the West Country pending a review has deepened the sense of uncertainty. Coal producers hope that greater integration between energy and industrial policy will work in their favour if they can make the case for carbon capture as a way to cut greenhouse gases while maintaining plentiful supplies of affordable electricity. Mr Sporton’s letter says the technology could enable “continued use of coal for electricity in the UK beyond 2025”, referring to the government deadline for removing coal from the country’s energy mix. A business department official said carbon capture “has still got a role to play in the long-term decarbonisation of the UK” and that the government would “continue to work with the industry”. Advocates say the UK is ideally placed for the technology because captured CO2 can be injected into depleted North Sea oil and gasfields and stored indefinitely. The first commercial scale coal-fired power station fitted with carbon capture equipment began operating in Canada in 2014. Projects led by Royal Dutch Shell in Scotland and Drax in Yorkshire were competing to pioneer the technology in Britain until the government pulled the plug. However, Mr Sporton said carbon capture remained crucial to curbing global emissions, given rising use of coal and gas in developing economies such as China and India. There could be a big export opportunity for the UK if the government promoted the technology, he added. The Treasury’s ditching of the carbon capture competition was attributed to high costs, but a report by the National Audit Office last month warned that the absence of the technology, or its delayed introduction, might lead to greater expense for the UK in the long run. The Treasury estimated the technology would require a subsidised electricity price of £170 per megawatt hour. This compared with £92.50 for nuclear power from Hinkley Point. However, advocates say the cost will come down as the technology matures. They argue that growing use of gas in the UK will make carbon capture essential to hit climate targets — and that the cost of the technology will keep rising the longer it is delayed. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Source link