Recently in Infrastructure Category

The North West is "leading the UK out of recession," and "intervention at a regional level has protected the region from the ravages of recession." That was the bullish claim of one speaker at this morning's Smith Institute seminar at the House of Lords this morning I went to this morning.

The institute used the seminar, which featured among others North West minister Phil Woolas, to unveil its latest publication,The Future of the North West.pdf

The report states that the North WEst now has a £120bn economy and urges that the region be granted greater economic powers in order that its economic priorities be met.

The Chatham House rule prevents me from dishing the dirt on who exactly said what, but the flavour was a generally positive - vehemently at times - overview of how the North West is faring this downturn.

I've never been to a Smith instute seminar before, so I wasn't quite expecting the frank and even slightly angry responses today from the audience at the House of Commons.

Gordon Brown's think tank held an event at what was otherwise an eerily subdued Parliament today to mark the publication of its the future of Yorkshire and Humber report.   

While the mainstay of media and politicians stayed away from Parliament ahead of state opening and the Queens speech tomorrow, committee room 15 was packed out with heads of local government and high ranking Yorkshire business men.

The audience listened politely while the speakers gave their opening speeches. The chair then threw the discussion out to the floor reminding everyone that it was Chatham House rules and all should feel able to talk freely.

He needn't have bothered. A barrage of criticism followed over local government's failure to secure the high speed rail link, which will now bypass Yorkshire completely on its route between London and Scotland. This quickly spilled over into Yorkshire's inability to put it's case forward to central government and its willingness to just accept defeat.

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It takes just 14 minutes to get from St Pancras station in Central London to Ebbsfleet in North Kent using Southeastern trains new high speed rail link. It's not a particularly pretty journey as most of it passes through tunnels but it is certainly fast.

The journey time will go up by three minutes when the trains start stopping at Stratford but I was curious to know if the economic benefits to Kent would extend beyond attracting London commuters to attracting new businesses.

During the journey this morning, I spoke to deputy leader of Kent County Council, Alex King, Mandy Bearne, director of marketing and research for Locate in Kent and industrial and logistics partner at Knight Frank Paul Mussi and asked them if investment would be speeding into the county.

So, it has been decided. Developers will face yet another tax on future projects.

The government concluded today that the community infrastructure levy, which will apply to all types of development, will come into force on 6th April 2010.

Funds recouped in London will go directly towards the cost of Crossrail and could see the mayor well on his way to the £200m he needs to have plucked from developer's wallets for Crossrail to be up and running by 2017. However, official figures today revealed that the UK has remained in recession as the economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.4% during Q3, despite initial predictions of growth by 0.2%. Could yet another burden on the property industry further stifle economic recovery?

Tim Smith, partner in planning and environment at commercial law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner seems to think it could, especially he says, as developers won't be able to negotiate the levy on grounds that it will render development unviable. It could mean that projects currently on hold stay that way, which won't help the economy or the funding of Crossrail. So while the tax may work in theory, the reality could cause a slight conundrum for the mayor.

Picture: CGI of Crossrail station at Canary Wharf, from Crossrail 

Illness wasn't enough to keep the property community away from a conference held this morning on the progress of Crossrail.

But while some sat coughing, eyes streaming, tissues in hand at New London Architecture's Crossrail: Impact and opportunity event it was Kevin McCauley, head of London research at CB Richard Ellis which made everyone's eyes really water.

Mc Cauley gave a stark look at the taxes that will be slapped on occupiers and developers from 2010 for the next 25 to 30 years to meet the £15bn cost of the project.  The business rates supplement will increase by 2p in every £1 hiking rates in the West End by 70% by 2010 and in the City by 20%, not to mention the community infrastructure levy and section 106s.

Boris Johnson clearly had something to celebrate on Twitter yesterday.

Under his MayorofLondon moniker he wrote:

Crossrail is an unstoppable force. Thanks a billion to the European Investment Bank! #TfL #London http://bit.ly/17zAIL

So we've been wondering in the office if this means he will step back from using his planning powers to force Tower Hamlets to reconsider its decision to reject Commercial Estates Group's 63-storey Columbus Tower in Canary Wharf, E14.

Johnson called in the decision last week because it "would deliver a significant contribution to Crossrail". EGi subscribers can read last week's story here. Well, it certainly one way to decide tomorrow's skyline.  

Image is by Dr. Progoganda used from Flickr under the Creative Commons license.

This week in the magazine we turn to the East of England and find there are some beacons of light appearing.

One of those is sentiment which seems to be improving, or at least not getting any worse. Stacey analyses the results of EG's latest sentiment survey and finds out just what the local property industry thinks is in store for the immediate future. She's also talked to the ERBI to find out how local technology firms are actually faring.

Drilling down to the individual cities; Cambridge's guided bus is (finally) about to become a reality. Some office park developers think it will boost their rents but they are largely the minority. Will it do any good in the current market?
In the city centre there's been no development for 15years. With the UK market in turmoil is that likely to change and what effect is that having on returns?

Norwich is still waiting for two large schemes by locally-based developer Targetfollow. I've quizzed them about their intentions and ask how much longer will Norwich have to wait? In retail, Chapelfield shopping centre seems to be bedding down with a letting to Apple (oops sorry I'm not meant to mention that) but what deals are landlords in other parts of the city doing?

And in Suffolk secondary office rents are actually rising  but it's at the expense of prime office space, while industrial is suffering heavily after international trade takes a tumble at the port of Felixstowe.

Interesting piece of research emerged from Lambert Smith Hampton's Thames Valley office this week. They've done a bit of off-beat pondering linking Heathrow Terminal 5 to office rents in the area.

When terminal 4 completed in 1986 the extra wings over Berskhire's offices led to a bull market. Office rents doubled from £17.50 per sq ft (in the early 90s) to £35 per sq ft (2001). Admittedly, the report says prior to terminal 4 construction the east side of the airport was an industrial heartland and the market [excuse the pun] took off in a huge way. It's unlikely we'll see a similar jump with terminal 5.

While property players have long been fixated by fast cars, fast trains seem to be all the rage at the Department for Transport. With cars being the less environmentally friendly option, it's hoped fast trains will catch on, but could developers find themselves forking out for these too?

Yesterday saw the first 140mph High Speed 1 trains enter service, travelling between London St Pancras and Ashford in Kent, but Transport secretary, Lord Adonis, has an appetite for something much faster, High Speed 2. These trains will be among the fastest in the world, running at 200mph, twice the speed of Crossrail trains and faster than Japan's 186-mph "Bullet" trains, the fastest convential trains.

And they would certainly cut the "long" out of long distance journeys. A trip from London to Manchester would take 1 hour 22 minutes and from London to Glasgow, 2 hours 42 minutes. But it will cost somewhere in the region of £30bn to build the entire London to Glasgow line, almost twice as much as the £15.9bn Crossrail.

Lord Adonis wants to see such journey's being taken by 2020 an ambitious timescale which would mean construction starting while Crossrail is being completed for 2017.