If you’ve ever wondered about the basics of the land business this great episode of the BBC’s The Bottom Line with Evan Davis will give you an excellent introduction. It outlines the basic processes of the planning system and how the right planning consent can add significant value to land without laying a single brick.
The University of Essex has struck a £60.6m deal with the Pension Insurance Corporation for investment into a new build 643 bed student accommodation development on the Colchester Campus. The latest deal adds to a previous £98m refinance package for existing accommodation for the University. PIC aim to hold the investment for the long term with nominations agreements with UoE to support the income profile.
The secured bonds are rated AA by S&P, with a guarantee from Assured Guaranty. The project sponsor is Uliving with Bouygues UK Limited as main contractor. TradeRisks arranged the deal for the bond issue. PIC has invested around £500 million in the student accommodation sector over the past three years.
Key points of the transaction:
PIC has invested around £2.5bn in direct and bilateral deals, including with providers of student accommodation, universities, renewables and over £700m in social and affordable housing across the UK.
We seem to have been here before as we see that London is powering ahead with house price increases of a fifth over the last twelve months. Within the 32 London Boroughs the average home now costs £499k, creating an enormous gulf over the national UK average house price of £265k.
The knock on effect on rental yields in the capital means that both professional landlords looking for income and private investors looking for a pension have found that they are now relying on capital increases for a profit from their investment. This is of limited use when ongoing revenue is being caught, and of less use still if and when the Bank of England decide to increase the interest base rate from it’s current historic low of 0.5%
A new report for totallymoney.com indicates that average gross yields in Kensington are a mere 1.6% where the average priced property costs an extraordinary £2.25m. In contrast, the S1 postcode in Sheffield yields 11% from an average price of £70k. While capital growth will be limited the gross yield make the northern proposition an attractive one.
In the days before YouTube a short promotional video was produced by Sheffield Council. As you would expect, it’s upbeat, it provides a few flashbacks into how we saw ourselves back then, AND it has Carry On music!
Even in 1969 it seemed obvious that steel was important but a diminishing part of what the city was all about, and we learn leisure and tourism aren’t new ideas to try to make a city more vibrant. No modern video would seriously reference bubonic plague, but Peter Wigley, Sheffield Council’s first PR and marketing man did just that to sell the city. How successful it was is a matter of opinion, but when it was produced in 1969 the corporation seemed keen to jam in as many messages as possible, even if some of them were a little bit odd and misplaced.
Childhood memories of the Sheffield Christmas illuminations always seemed better, but checking the video seems to confirm that there were more of them. The Sheffield Show in Hillsborough Park is now just a distant memory as is the Star Walk, and it’s almost laughable to see the M1 motorway and Sheffield Parkway devoid of traffic.
Sheffield University’s target of having 10,000 students in Sheffield by the 1980’s is in stark contrast to the current Sheffield student population of over 60,000. Slum clearances were a big deal in the 60’s and the now maligned architecture of Park Hill, Hyde Park and Norfolk Park take centre stage with references to how they provided modern homes for ordinary people.
It’s interesting to see familiar messages being references with the the Park Hill redux now being undertaken By Urban Splash. It reminds us that regeneration isn’t just a thing that happens once – it’s an ongoing activity that never really starts, and can never really end.
Time stops for no-one, and even though the PR style has changed over the years, the pride in what’s being done, and the level of ambition for the future remain undiminished in this amazing and versatile city.
Self builders are set to save £1,000s thanks to a recent decision on Section 106 Planning Obligations. On 11 May the Court of Appeal Civil Division reversed last year’s High Court decision to quash the exemption from s106 planning obligation payments for small sites.
The exemption, first introduced by Minister for Housing and Planning, Brandon Lewis MP, by Ministerial Statement on 28 November 2014, freed self builders from the unpopular s106 planning obligation payments which required them to divert £10,000s from their budget for a new home, into a payment towards roads, schools, affordable housing and other local authority infrastructure projects.
NaCSBA, the National Custom and Self Build Association, campaigned for the exemption on the grounds that the payments – designed to mitigate the impact of major development on local infrastructure – were disproportionate to the impact of small developments, especially single self build homes and failed to recognize the exceptional costs of developing a small site.
The exemption, applied to sites in England of 10 new homes or less (five in designated rural areas), was welcomed by self builders and small housebuilders alike. Some local authorities, however, disagreed with the exemption and on 31 July 2015, the judge in a High Court case brought by two neighbouring authorities, Reading and West Berkshire, found the exemption unlawful, and it was quashed just eight months after its introduction leaving many self builders in indefinite limbo.
The High Court Judge’s ruling clearly contradicted the intentions of the Government and its stated commitment to boost housebuilding, help smaller local housebuilders and double the size of the self build sector to 20,000 homes a year by 2020. NaCSBA immediately launched a campaign for the reintroduction of the exemption and in August 2015, DCLG was granted leave to appeal. The High Court’s decision to quash the exemption has been reversed with immediate effect. The Government is expected to update its guidance accordingly.
“NaCSBA welcomes the Court of Appeal ruling,” says Chair, Michael Holmes. “This exemption, together with the existing exemption from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), brings us one step closer to NaCBSA’s stated aim to make a high quality, sustainable, affordable individual home an option for the many and not just the few.
“Despite this victory for those who want to build their own home, it is still possible that the original appellants may seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.”