The Brunel Place project will be delivered in partnership with Slough Borough Council and will lead a wider regeneration of the town by the local authority. The 350,000 sq ft scheme will include three office buildings, located next to a new Crossrail station, which will open in 2018. Show Fullscreen Brunel Place U I Slough Borough Council terrace The design includes a number of roof terraces The council’s overall redevelopment of Slough town centre will deliver more than 1,000 homes, transport infrastructure, a civic centre, and new hotel and retail space. U+I was formed in May 2014, following a merger between Development Securities and Cathedral Group. The company has a £4bn portfolio of mixed-use development projects and a £200m investment portfolio. This week it was appointed as the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority’s development partner for the £300m regeneration of 8 Albert Embankment. The investor-developer will now start working on plans for the site and begin the consultation process. Commenting on the appointment, U+I chief executive Richard Upton said: “Just weeks after being selected by Camden Council for a new public-private partnership project at Cockpit Yard, we are delighted to have been appointed to redevelop 8 Albert Embankment and to have the opportunity to work with the LFB and Lambeth again. “U+I has extensive experience of PPP, and our approach is anchored by a commitment to community consultation and a respect for the provenance of every site.” Brunel Place U I Slough Borough Council street Brunel Place is part of a wider regeneration of Slough town centre Other major schemes under development by U+I include the multi-phased, £250m Old Vinyl Factory regeneration, which features 650 homes and 750,000 sq ft of commercial space. Hub and Bridge Ventures are jointly developing the latest phase of the Old Vinyl Factory scheme, known as the Material store, which is being built by Interserve.   Source link

Savills and Cushman & Wakefield, on behalf of the Blackrock UK Property Fund, have let further office space at the 180,000 sq ft (16,722 sq m) Capitol Building in Bracknell to Snow Software Limited. Snow Software has agreed to move from the lower ground floor to the second floor to occupy 13,000 sq ft (1,207 sq m) and will pay an annual rent of £325,000, equating to circa £25 per sq ft (£269 per sq m). Olivia Wood, associate director in the South East office agency team at Savills, comments: “This deal is a testament to the fact that Capitol is able to deliver a working environment attuned to modern businesses and demonstrates why Snow Software has chosen to remain, rather than relocate.” Andy Joeres from Snow Software, adds: “Our company has grown faster than expected over the past 12 months and working with BlackRock, we were able to deliver a solution for our rapidly expanding business.” A total of 21,500 sq ft (1,997 sq m) remains available at a guide price of £25 per sq ft (£269 per sq m).   Source link

JD Sports, represented by international real estate advisor Savills, has secured 375-381 Oxford Street for a major new store west of Oxford Circus.  The retailer has agreed a new 10-year lease for the 23,000 sq ft (2,137 sq m) property, which is owned by Norges Bank Investment Management and sits within West One Shopping Centre.  It will pay an annual rent of £3.1 million. In 2014, Savills also acquired a 34,500 sq ft (3,205 sq m) store east of Oxford Circus for JD Sports at 201-203 Oxford Street.  The new deal means the retailer, which exited a smaller second unit on the street earlier this year due to the future redevelopment of the building, now has a major store on both east and west Oxford Street.   Sam Foyle, Oxford Street specialist at Savills, comments: “This property is ideally positioned to complement our client’s existing store on east Oxford Street and ensure JD Sports can maximise the benefits of future footfall increases linked to Crossrail and other infrastructure improvements.” The landlord represented by Nash Bond. Source link

A study released by international real estate advisor Savills and the British Council for Offices (BCO)  has revealed that almost half (46%) of office workers think that the office has a positive affect on their mental health, while 40% think it has a positive impact on their physical health. Clear correlation is shown between those who say they have less control over the set-up and design of their working environment and those who report negative physical and mental health scores.  The report, What Workers Want, polled 1,132 office workers across the UK asking employees what factors they look for in a workplace, and how much they believe that their current environment satisfies those requirements. Those who work in a private office, as opposed to open plan, are more likely to say it has a positive impact on their mental health (50% opposed to 45%)  and women are more likely to respond positively than men (48% to 45%). Click here to see the impact your workplace has on your mental health The survey also asked about physical health, with 40% of respondents saying the office also has a positive affect on their physical state with 30% saying it has a negative impact Click here to see the impact your workplace has on your physical health What Workers Wants highlights the strong correlation between having control over one’s working environment and mental and physical health: workers who said they had little or no control over their environment are far more likely to say the environment has a detrimental impact on both their mental and physical wellbeing. Click here to see the correlatrion between workers control over thier environment and thier mental and physical health Savills also compared respondents’ satisfaction with the light and temperature in their office with their views on how the office impacts their mental and physical health. It could perhaps be anticipated that those who said they were dissatisfied with their office temperature also reported that the office had a negative impact on their physical health, but the same was also true for their mental health. 72% of those who said they were ‘very satisfied’ with the temperature of their office also said that the office had a positive impact on their mental health, with only 9% reporting a negative impact. In comparison, of those who said they were ‘not at all satisfied’ with the office temperature, 56% said the office had a negative impact on their mental health, with 24% reporting a positive impact. Steve Lang, director,  Savills research and author of the report, says:  “Just as ‘wellness’ has become a bigger issue in wider society, it has also become a hot topic in the office with occupiers taking steps to improve things such as natural daylight in the office in recognition that this impacts mental health. We, however, haven’t heard much about the apparent role that temperature plays in mental health. Given the potential knock on effects this needs to be looked at in more detail when designing the office. Office temperature wars are a perennial issue, but advances in technology will help: more nuanced monitoring of heat levels, climate control office chairs and integrated fans are already on the agenda and are likely to be permanent features of the office of the future.” Jeremy Bates, head of Savills Worldwide Occupier Services, adds: “That two thirds of employees think that the office has a neutral or positive impact on their mental and physical health is very encouraging. But there is work to do to support the remaining third who say it has a negative impact. The fact that those who say they have more control are more likely to report better physical and mental health demonstrates the value of giving employees decision-making powers over simple aspects of the workplace; thereby empowering them. On the whole, however it’s a positive picture for the office.”  Source link

Tight supply margins will mean balancing the market will be “very expensive” if the coming winter is harsh, according to analysis by consultancy firm EnAppSys. There will be roughly twelve and a half hours of negative supply margins over the season, the analysis predicted, with seven hours falling during National Grid’s winter period, and another five and half hours falling in the ‘shoulder’ months of October and March. EnAppSys also forecast 85 hours of supply margins below 2GW, with more than half coming in the shoulder months. By comparison the firm calculated last year that the margin would be greater than 2GW all the way through the 2015/16 winter, apart from during just two hours when it would average 1,500MW. The analysis was conducted by taking last year’s availability figures, modifying them to take account of the opening and closing of plants this year, and then matching them against last year’s demand profile. Among the losses are Longannet and Ferrybridge, which were both shut down in March; Eggborough, which has exited the market but has a supplemental balance reserve (SBR) contract; and Rugeley, which Engie has confirmed is being closed down this month. The two gains are Carrington combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant, which is currently undergoing commissioning and is expected to come online over the summer, and Keadby CCGT plant which was reopened in November after being mothballed. EnAppSys said the negative supply margins do not equate to blackouts as they do not take account of up to 2GW of smaller plants potentially available through the Short Term Operating Reserve or the roughly 3.5GW of capacity available through the SBR. A number of new small-scale distributed generators which received capacity market contracts may also be available, it said, although they are likely to provide no more than 300MW of additional capacity. Despite this, the analysis said the tight margins are likely to make keeping the system in balance “very expensive” if there is a harsh winter. It noted that system prices tend towards £1,000/MWh when margins drop below 1GW and typically reach £2,000/MWh when margins are negative, and said margins going negative by more than 1GW will lead to the SBR being called up and the system price hitting £3,000/MWh. Estimated monthly hours of low margins over winter 2016/17 Source: EnAppSys The research said: “These high system prices will feed back into the wholesale market. High prices are not a bad thing – they encourage people to build power stations and engage with demand response. However, some small suppliers may not survive the winter.” Last month National Grid issued a Notice of Inadequate System Margin (NISM) – the second time it had done so in a year. The highest price paid to a supplier during the NISM period was £1,250/MWh. Source link

Many years ago, when me and my Mrs first started looking for a flat to rent together, our only experience of dodgy landlords was my even dodgier impression of Rigsby from Rising Damp. “Ahhh Miss Jones” – still got it. Anyway, we found our first ‘palace’ together. It was the ground floor of a terraced house in a part of town that prompted my mum to buy us extra locks for a house moving gift and was owned by a Machiavellian old bugger that I’m just going to refer to as Mr S. Not that I imagine he’d ever read this, he was knocking on 80 when he was our landlord and having to fork out for a computer would probably have made his head spin faster than the unusual electicity meter he had kindly fitted for us. Despite looking like something from a Werthers Original advert, Mr S was a crafty old sod that loved money. While inspecting the flat and signing all the forms (reading them, exactly the same way that you don’t with iTunes terms and conditions) I asked if we could have a look in the back yard. After worrying about the state of the fences I spotted an old Raleigh bike leaning against the bin. Noticing I was looking at it, Mr S asked me if I had a bike. “No, I don’t actually Mr S” I said. “I havent ridden one in years.” “You never forget!” he chuckled and signaled for me to get on it. I rode around the back yard for a bit, much to the amusement of my wife and leaned it back against the bin. “You want it?” Mr S asked me. “You’d be doing me a favour, I don’t know what to do with it?” “Honestly? Are you sure?, I mean, yes I’d love it thanks. Thanks very much Mr S that’s great!” I beamed at my wife. “My pleasure son.” said Mr S and we all went inside to finishing signing everything. We moved in and the following week, Mr S turned up on the doorstep to collect the rent. I handed over the agreed amount and it was as this point Mr S informed me that it was £20 light. £20? You know, for the favour I’d done for him by not making him remove the last tenants bike from my garden. He’d bloody sold it to me without me realising. This was only the begining. Our damp problem in the back room was referred to as a ‘water feature’ in one heated argument and when we complained about a massive ants nest on the property in the summer he just laughed and said “I should charge you more for pets.” After enduring his wily ways, surpise inspections and erratic rent collections for 8 frustrating months, we parted company. Losing the deposit (as expected) because we didnt give him the required notice and just wanted to get out, but it was worth it. And that was that. Although Mr S was MY worst landlord ever, he probably wasn’t THE worst, as we’ll see… Katia Goremsandu The 65-year old Bulgarian currently stands accused of being Britain’s worst landlord after she was convicted of an impressive seven housing offences in eight years — all while receiving thousands of pounds in housing benefit from her tenants. Goremsandu currently tops the Ministry of Justice’s record of landlords prosecuted for providing poor quality or unlicensed homes, however, she claims she has been persecuted by her local council and her properties are deliberately vandalised by tenants envious of her wealth. Goremsandu is the director of a property company registered in Kensington. Company records list her address as an apartment in a rather fetching Georgian villa in Bayswater, west London. At the time of writing, she owns eight properties in the capital, three of them run-down bedsits in the north London borough of Haringey, most of which have been financed with buy-to-let mortgages. In an interview with the Guardian she said: “The mentality of a homeless person or the person who doesn’t have work or a property is ‘why should [the landlord] have [a property] and I don’t. And they bash it, they break it. It is a well-known fact. It is a state of mind. They punish you for being a landlord.” we are the victims and we cannot take any action against the tenants. My places are vandalised periodically, alarm systems are broken. It is a war between the landlords and the tenants and they begrudge the fact that we have property.” My health has deteriorated and my finances have suffered. I am being victimised and harassed. That is the God’s honest truth.” Fergus Wilson The notorious Fergus Wilson, who kicked out 200 families on benefits from his properties to replace them with Eastern European migrants, once said coldly of his decision: “I have taken the decision to evict all families with more than two children and also three-generation households. Most of our houses in Ashford go to childless couples. However, after a couple of months there are four, five, six children and I have to evict the family. The tenancy has been taken by deception. We have had a number of eastern European families slip in under the radar with four, five and six children. We have had no British tenants with three or more children for some weeks. They have been evicted as I took the decision to no longer take housing benefit cases. All those British tenants with three or more children have long gone. We’ve found [migrants] to be a good category of tenant who don’t default on their rent.” Mr Wilson once told Channel 4: “I feel sorry for battered wives who have come to us because we’re very much consigning them to go back to their husbands to be beaten up again.” Nicholas Van Hoogstraten Infamous businessman and property magnate Nicholas van Hoogstraten gives most dodgy landlords a run for their money. A judge in