The government has revealed a portfolio of 13 projects to offer £5 billion of opportunities to potential investors from China in the Northern Powerhouse. Chancellor Phillip Hammond presented the schemes to a delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai. Hammond commented: “As we seek to take to take the
Investors from Hong Kong and Macau have signed a £55 million residential development deal, Birmingham city council has confirmed. At least 214 apartments are set to be built on a brownfield site at 21 William Street in Ladywood. The Cedar House was formerly a data centre. In September, Birmingham City
“In this day and age, programme is critical to contractors and businesses,” attests Angus Cormie, Chief Engineer at J&D Pierce, one of the UK’s leading structural steel provider. As a champion designer, supplier and installer of quality steelwork, J&D Pierce offers an end-to-end service that dramatically reduces the supply chain
An interesting development; it has been announced that large investors will, in fact not be exempt from the previously announced stamp duty surcharge to be brought into effect in a matter of weeks. The 3% stamp duty, to be applied on additional homes, was initially believed to only affect those
As reported by Lloyds Bank, new data suggested that almost half of those individuals looking to relocate home within the upcoming three years are actually planning to downsize. In fact, beyond being a coincidental factor, downsizing has actually been dubbed the most popular reason for people to choose to move
Unphased by some of the major changes in tax this year, it has been reported (in recent research) that the majority of UK property investors (circa 56%, in fact) are resolute in continuing with plans to purchase further buy-to-let assets over the course of the next year. The news is,
Turner & Townsend, one of the UK’s leading professional providers of programme management, project management and cost management has successfully managed to confirm a financial package worth some £80m from three of the UK’s leading banks, namely: Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Lloyds Commercial Bank. The announcement sits alongside
The government has revealed a portfolio of 13 projects to offer £5 billion of opportunities to potential investors from China in the Northern Powerhouse. Chancellor Phillip Hammond presented the schemes to a delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai. Hammond commented: “As we seek to take to take the golden era of UK China relations to the next step, we have a major opportunity to open up investment opportunities across the Northern Powerhouse. “This portfolio, opening up billions of pounds of investment ready projects to Chinese investors, will support our work to grow and create jobs across the north, as well as underpin our ambitions to bring world class infrastructure to every corner of Britain.” The Department for International Trade has also confirmed that they are working with 15 investors from China on property development and infrastructure schemes in the North of England. Some of the projects within the Northern Powerhouse Investment Portfolio are: AeroCentre, Doncaster: working with Sheffield Airport in the next phase of development to create new offices, logistic units and aviation hangars. Future Carrington, Trafford: opportunities for investment in a large scale residential and employment development in a prime location, providing over 14,000 new jobs and contributing an additional £720m GVA per annum. Kampus, Manchester: an exciting opportunity to create new city centre apartments and retail including bars, cafes and shops. Kirkstall Forge, Leeds: an opportunity to develop a new neighbourhood of 1,050 new homes, office space, retail, leisure and community space. Liverpool Waters, Liverpool: this offers sale of land to develop a full range of uses, as part of an overall £5 billion project which transform the city’s northern docks. MediaCityUK, Salford, Greater Manchester: home to the BBC, ITV and more than 250 smaller creative and digital businesses, an investment would double the size of MediaCityUK, creating studio, office, residential and retail space.
Investors from Hong Kong and Macau have signed a £55 million residential development deal, Birmingham city council has confirmed. At least 214 apartments are set to be built on a brownfield site at 21 William Street in Ladywood. The Cedar House was formerly a data centre. In September, Birmingham City Council signed a joint statement of investment commitment with County Garden, the fifth biggest property developer in China, which it said could be worth up to £2 billion for the city’s economy with regard to direct investment into infrastructure and housing. John Clancy, the council’s leader, said that the deal could be worth up to £5 billion to the city. During a trip to Singapore, China and Hong Kong last year, Mr Clancy met with investors where he outlined Birmingham’s open approach to Asian investment, in particular residential development in the city. He explained: “This is excellent news and demonstrates that Birmingham is open for business in a challenging post-Brexit landscape. “Coming on top of the £2bn agreement with Country Garden to deliver much-needed homes for our citizens, this is proof that Birmingham can attract global investors. “There’s a housing crisis in this country and Birmingham is no exception. We need more affordable homes, we need more social housing, and we need to give people hope.” Waheed Nazir, Birmingham City Council’s Strategic Director for the Economy, said that the new investment is of vital importance to this growth agenda. Nazir continued: “Announcements like this, together with the recent launch of a £724m investment plan to maximise the benefits of HS2, demonstrate that confidence in the city is high. “The delivery of new homes, quality of life and employment opportunities will continue to see Birmingham as an attractive place to invest.” Top Capital Group will act as the funder and ultimate owner of the site through the establishment of William Street Investment Co, which will buy a long lease on the land.
“In this day and age, programme is critical to contractors and businesses,” attests Angus Cormie, Chief Engineer at J&D Pierce, one of the UK’s leading structural steel provider. As a champion designer, supplier and installer of quality steelwork, J&D Pierce offers an end-to-end service that dramatically reduces the supply chain and provides clients a competitive edge in terms of both time and cost. As Cormie continues, “With an all-encompassing structural steel service, we eliminate the need for multiple parties, manage interfaces and offer guaranteed excellence, every time, for every client.” Established in 1975, J&D Pierce has retained its family-run approach while diversifying and expanding into areas beyond purely steel fabrication and is now able to provide a comprehensive service from early design right through costing, fabrication and protective treatment to erection. A specialist in design and fabrication, J&D Pierce has continued to develop further capabilities, and can effectively carry a project through from inception to completion. Although subcontracting can be an economical way of procuring specialist works, it can also give rise to various kinds of problems. Within differences of opinion, organisation and interfacing issues, it can present significant delays and programme slippages for main contractors and become a cost burden to which clients simply cannot subscribe. Attending to that concern and delivering an end-to-end service, J&D Pierce offers an alternative, financially risk-free mode of construction, as Cormie makes clear: “Because we don’t sub-contract any services out, we have complete control over a project. Main contractors like to de-risk; if they can hire a single firm to carry out all works they will because it prevents problems of coordinating works on site and allows them to concentrate on their own objectives. We allow them programme certainty; our wide range of skills and expertise more than capable of shouldering an entire contract.” J&D Pierce has established itself as a one-stop-shop in structural steelwork and boasts divisions dedicated not only to design, production, erection, roofing and cladding, but stretching right the way across transport, delivery, crane, and access. It’s with concentrated investment that the company has been able to develop its services and establish manufacture, delivery and erection processes which are each unrivalled in both speed or quality and, combined, provide significant advantages to customers. That broad spectrum of capabilities is only set to widen as the development of new facilities adjacent to J&D Pierce’s existing site gets underway. The 15-acre development beside their existing facilities will host a new steel fabrication process for the manufacture of plate girders. The company is investing millions in state-of-art tooling equipment and technology for this for external sales and with a view to gaining even greater production efficiency. Primarily though, the new facilities will enable the company to take on an even greater proportion of works, as Cormie details further, “There are some specialist products that are used, particularly in high-rise buildings, that we would ordinarily have to outsource from specialist manufacturers. The new facilities will allow us to start manufacturing those ourselves therefore affording us greater control over production, as well as the ability to shorten the lead-in times and enhance the programme we can offer our clients.” Indeed, the company’s development has long been informed by the desire to exceed clients; expectations across the board. Despite widening its catalogue of services, J&D Pierce has only further emphasised quality within their expansion, with state of the art machinery incorporating intelligent software and direct linkage with J&D Pierce’s design system, it is also highly efficient, can identify how best to to minimise wastage and produce a precise replica of the computational drawing on-screen. So esteemed in design is J&D Pierce that it regularly offers both partial and full design, as well as design advice on projects. Whether approached at the stage of conception, integration, value engineering or connection analysis, the company is able to provide critical design solutions via a number of industry standard software operated by experienced engineers. With unrivalled expertise in design at a planning, development and operational level, the company’s manufacture and erection processes are significantly enhanced and J&D Pierce has, on more than one occasion, found itself heading the pack on construction projects. During a recent contract at Bristol Sports Club, the company was tasked to redevelop the West Stand and, as an informed contractor, paved the way for others to follow, as Cormie outlines: “The aim was to tie in work with the existing stand and erect a complicated three-dimensional roof design with a main trusse spanning 108m. We carried out the interface detail and, despite having our own cladding division, worked alongside an external cladding supplier and the precast supplier sourced by the main contractor. “We had a very tight footprint in which to erect the project and immediately envisaged the difficulties that would pose to both ourselves and the cladders. We re-thought the engineers’ methodology of erection (a system of building temporary towers to build the truss on) and suggested that we could, in fact, build the entire truss from the ground and lift it into place with two large cranes. While it took intricate crane movement for final placement, it meant that we had much better safety control because the majority of work was conducting on the ground rather than at height, as well as giving us significant advantage in programme, preventing stoppages and delays in schedule.” Characterised by its ability to add value and decrease the costs associated with programme, J&D Pierce also designed bespoke hinge details on the supporting rafters; the innovative solution allowed the company to pre-erect the rafters in pairs and then swing them up to the truss and complete the structure in less than a day, As a specialist in design, manufacture and construction, the company has a key understanding of each phase of development and effectively guarantees a project’s success with quality and control endowed. Of course, those ethics and successes come as the result of focused attention on training and development. J&D Pierce has worked hard to up-skill its
An interesting development; it has been announced that large investors will, in fact not be exempt from the previously announced stamp duty surcharge to be brought into effect in a matter of weeks. The 3% stamp duty, to be applied on additional homes, was initially believed to only affect those investing in less than 15 properties yet, in the recent budget announced by Chancellor George Osborne, it has been made clear that even those with a larger property portfolio will be subject to the stamp duty. Of course, in contrast to previous statements of optimism within the private renting sector, the news is heralded as a concerning development for the build to rent sector, with concerns raised over the profitability of such endeavours for investors. Expected to represent a considerable deterrent to those pursuing build to rent investments as their primary mode of investment, and, as highlighted by the British Property Federation’s Chief Executive, Melanie Leech, it may also restrict the sector’s ability to: “Deliver a significant number of new, quality affordable homes.” And while those purchases incorporating greater than six different residential properties can indeed be regarded as a non-residential investment, simultaneous reforms made to stamp duty for commercial properties is expected to provide a boundary for those looking to sneak around the stamp duty implemented. With this development now making it night on impossible for investors to avoid the additional charges, dampened spirits present the problem of a negative outlook on the performance of the sector and associated supply, whilst demand for private rented households has been clocked in at an approximate 1m over the course of the next five years. Responding to outcries from the wider sector, Berwin Leighton Paisner’s Head of the Corporate Tax Team, Elizabeth Bradley stated: “The chancellor has acknowledged the need to build more homes but the extension of the extra SDLT rate on buy to let to large investors will discourage investment in the private rented sector.”
As reported by Lloyds Bank, new data suggested that almost half of those individuals looking to relocate home within the upcoming three years are actually planning to downsize. In fact, beyond being a coincidental factor, downsizing has actually been dubbed the most popular reason for people to choose to move house as of present. Encouraged by the anticipated returns of moving to a smaller property, there has been a considerable surge in interest for such moves over the past few years. This, primarily can be attributed to the average windfall which individuals may be in receipt of should they relocate from a detached to semi-detached home. The average age cited for those looking to downsize sits at around the age of 53, where many of the homeowners had previously lived in their property for an extended period of 11-20 years. Of course, with people around this age beginning to consider their future and plans for upcoming retirement in many cases, relocation to a smaller, more cost-efficient property serves as one way for them to prepare as such. Moving to better suit changing circumstances was reported to be the number one reason for moving, followed by a want to reduce bills, free up equity and, as aforementioned, provide extra funds for retirement. This, of course, is further enhanced when considering the traditionally lower costs of heating and powering a smaller property in contrast to a larger, more spacious one. Of those downsizing, some 20% of people stated that they are moving far earlier than they had originally planned, with key reasons such as health, changing relationship status and the provision of amenities in certain geographic areas being key factors of concern. Additionally, geographic affordability also contributed, especially when taking into account the concept of requirement, where relative location for employment opportunities is no longer of prime concern. With almost three quarters of people expecting to make a profit from downsizing, the question begs as to whether property downsizing in the later stages of life will now become the norm for those looking to prepare for retirement, or invest in key financial products – a popular product naturally proving to be pensions.
Unphased by some of the major changes in tax this year, it has been reported (in recent research) that the majority of UK property investors (circa 56%, in fact) are resolute in continuing with plans to purchase further buy-to-let assets over the course of the next year. The news is, as expected, regarded as a bold move for such investors with reference to the previously reported market changes which will make it even more difficult for buy-to-let properties to effectively turn a profit (many reported to even have losses predicted). Of course, those looking to invest aren’t just diving in head-first, and it is instead reported that many are taking a responsible approach to their investment, with many establishing themselves as limited companies so as best to minimise the impacts of this year’s tax changes (circa 40%). Additionally, many other investors have laid out plans to increase rents at their properties to ensure a level of profitability also (some 33%). Yet, naturally, some investors have taken heed of the changes to both stamp duty and tax relief, taking a more cautious approach to their investment plans. Of those which have stated not to be securing any additional buy-to-let assets this year (the remaining 44%), a large portion (20%) attributed this to caps placed on tax relief, whilst most of those remaining (16% in total) referred to the changes made to stamp duty as one of the key causes of concern. However, following on from our recent nod to the industry changes, the news is well received, with a shade more confidence in the sector than was originally predicted. Naturally, the prospects highlight an unforeseen continuation in opportunity for industry lenders, who will be able to continue benefiting from the considerable interest in buy-to-let properties and commercial mortgages. How long this trend is to continue, however, is hard to say.
Turner & Townsend, one of the UK’s leading professional providers of programme management, project management and cost management has successfully managed to confirm a financial package worth some £80m from three of the UK’s leading banks, namely: Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Lloyds Commercial Bank. The announcement sits alongside the £380m turnover company’s recent conversion into a limited liability partnership. As a company with a keen focus on investment back into the company, sources as Turner & Townsend highlight the importance played by such investment in the company’s ability to steadily grow its turnover over the last five years. As Vincent Clancy, Chief Executive of Turner and Townsend (pictured) noted that the recent developments will allow the company to: “Invest in our capability and to continue to transform our business to deliver better results for our clients.” The package, which Turner & Townsend has secured on a five year revolving credit, is aimed to facilitate the future growth of the organisations and will provide much-needed working capital. Key areas of investment for the organisation will involve the expansion of the company’s reach, geographically, and also in terms of services and its overarching capacity to deliver on them. The plans come at a time when the construction industry, in its present state, is considered to be performing well and will allow for Turner & Townsend to maximise on the opportunities presently available in the market. With keen backing from all three of the major banks, both confidence in Turner & Townsend, as well as the confidence it exudes, is considerable, with great anticipation for the future direction of the company.
