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EG North East Focus

Published October 20, 2012

Offices 

Analysis of market conditions and future trends. Contact: Simon Binns, North of England correspondent 07785 387 996, simon.binns@estatesgazette.com

Regeneration

Analysis of how Government initiatives are impacting on the region. Contact: Simon Binns, North of England correspondent 07785 387 996, simon.binns@estatesgazette.com

Student Housing 

Analysis of the sector in the North East. Contact: Helen Hamilton, freelance writer, 01568 709155, hamiltonhelen7@gmail.com

Market health check: Email Stacey.meadwell@estatesgazette.com if you think you can help with up to date stats (up to end of Q3) for Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough offices, retail and leisure.

Please contact writers directly for more information about the specific topics they are covering by Monday 24 Sep, 2012

Today's news that 1NG, the city development company for the Newcastle and Gateshead conurbation, has been axed by the two councils that fund it, has caused quite a stir.

The official word from Newcastle and Gateshead councils is that this is the launch of "new arrangements" to attract inward investments to the region, with 1NG's functions to be subsumed into the councils, the city promotional body NewcastleGateshead Initiative to begin a new drive to attract businesses, and 1NG chairman Lord Falconer to head a new Business Development Commission.

However, among Newcastle's there are clearly some concerns.Canvassing opinion today, some are putting a brave face on, with Sanderson Weatherall's Robert Patterson commenting: "I'm sure, going forward, the local authorities can achieve as much [as 1NG]."

But BNP Paribas Real Estate's Paul Nicholson said: "My concern is that another organisation with the North East's interests at heart has been shipped off."

 

Regeneration
Analysis of key schemes across the region
Contact: Daniel Cunningham, senior writer, 020 7911 1822, daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com
 
Development
Analysis of the key private sector led projects
Contact: Adrian Morrison, freelance writer, 07818 013 233, adrian.morrison@addmor.com
 
Enterprise Zones
Spotlight on the latest incarnations across the region
Contact: Mark Smulian, freelance writer, 07976 267172, mark.smulian@virgin.net

Market in numbers
Please contact daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com if you think you can supply up to date North East market stats and predictions.

 

Any of you out there got an outfit like this? Well you might need to look around for a new supplier. According to Experian the plastics and rubber industry registered the greatest percentage of business failures in July.

If you're an agent heavily into your plastics and rubber - we know there must be some of you out there - particularly those in the North East with it's heavy bent towards petrochemical occupiers it shows the worst is not over. The oil industry didn't fare that well either with 0.18% of the sector filing for insolvency in July. And, as occupier demand is thin in the region to say the least and it's difficult to see who might replace these voids.

You can see a complete table of business failures by sector and by region by clicking Experian insolvency research July 2011.xls.

Health and household topped the charts with none of its members going bust but pharmaceuticals, the bedrock of Cambridge's occupier base, also performed strongly a good sign for all those developers with cranes on the city's skyline.

Insurance followed closely behind plastics and rubber with 0.32% of its business populaton failing, a grim reminder to The City it is not out of the woods yet. So too for banking which while safely occupying the middle ground in terms of percent of business failing is still seeing a year on year increase in insolvency.By sheer numbers business services registered the highest number of insolvencies.

For the industry itself, property companies continued to fail at a greater rate than this time last year up from 0.05% in July 2010 to 0.07% in July 2011.

Geographically,  the North West performed worst with 0.14% of its firms failing - more than any other region.Scotland it seems was the best.

Picture by Fetish Art Identification Search on Flickr

The title of Savills residential report today says it all "Mapping the great divide".

Savills has stuck its marker in the sand today and forecast where it thinks regional house prices will be by 2015. Sadly, all the minus numbers are in the north and the pluses are all in the south.

But growth, even in the south east, is some way below what it was at the peak. In Cambridgeshire transaction levels are 77% what they were at the peak. Barnsley meanwhile is the worst performer.  It says that availability of finance and how much affordability of mortgages is dented by interest rate rises will continue to limit any house price growth.

UPDATE: Savills have just told us about an error on the graphic below. For Burnley there should be no '+' next to the figure of transaction levels compared to the pre-crunch peak  (ie: transactions in Burnley are actually down 72%). 

Click on the image below to view a larger version of the map.

It's not been a good week (again!) for retail.

The Association of Town Centre Managers and Springboard said today that footfall dropped in every regional market in June when compared to the same month last year. Wales was the worst off down almost 11%.

Only Greater London escaped the gloom scraping a 0.5% increase.

The year on year decline is the most signifcant since February said ACTM-Springboard, although it tempered this by saying the high street was not re-experiencing the recession.

It's not the only one delivering a gloomy retail message. Colliers International announced yesterday that retail is the weak point in the UK commercial property market
Add in the ONS which came out today and said that while retail sales have increased over the year, food sales headed south.

Worringly for the property industry the food store sector decreased 4.2% - the largest fall on record since the series began in 1988. Food stores have been the saviour of many a scheme in the recession and should perhaps cause at least a furrowed brow at Land Securities which earlier this week annouced it would carry out £1m sq ft of developments for retailers including Sainsbury's and Tesco.


Related posts
Five Primark's worth of space still to let at Trinity Leeds - crunching the numbers behind Land Securities interim statement

Retail weathermap forecasts stormy outlook in for northern England and Scotland

Who's the top of the shops? FSP's Retail Burn names the climbers and fallers this month

Just got these artist impressions of the student accommodation that is being built for Northumbria University at Spenhill's Trinity Square in Gateshead.

The scheme, which will have nearly 1,000 rooms, boasts among other things, a roof terrace almost twice the size of Newcastle United football club's St James's Park pitch.

Back in my day as a student in Liverpool we felt lucky because we had one fridge to share between 16 rooms. I do wonder, though, what the hall fees are like in these all-singing, all-dancing student digs.

The RICS Pro Yorkshire Awards on Friday night were a lively affair writes EG's Damian Wild. More than 300 of the region's finest gathered at The Pavilion, Elland Road, in Leeds to see BBC Breakfast's Bill Turnbull host.

EG presented its Yorkshire and North East Regional Awards at the event. Land Securities won Property Company of the Year while Sanderson Weatherall picked up Property Adviser of the Year for the seventh consecutive time.

Land Sec's Gerald Jennings and Sanderson Weatherall's Tim Catterall, Bob Fletcher and Peter Heron ensured the EG table was among the liveliest on the night.

Experian today publishes its monthly insolvency index for the country with some good news for Yorkshire and the North East. The two regions saw the biggest improvement in the number of firms going bust compared with October last year.

Both regions had the highest insolvency rates in October 2009 but have seen business collapses decline from 0.14% to 0.11% in the North East and from 0.15 to 0.07% in Yorkshire. Heartening news indeed.

It is also good news for Scotland which regained its position as the region with the lowest rate of insolvencies at 0.05%.

The property industry is also looking a little more robust. Insolvencies in the construction industry including building materials businesses declined in Oct compared to the the same period last year. Property firms also saw insolvencies drop from 0.1% to 0.05%.

However, it is medium sized firms of 50-100 employees which seem to remain the most vulnerable with involvencies on the increase from 0.19 to 0.24%.

So not quite smiles all round but something to be quietly cheerful about.