Recently in West Midlands Category

Savills and Stoford were crowned Wales and South West's property finest at the EG regional awards yesterday. At a sumptuous lunch at Cardiff's Parc Hotel for RICS Wales awards, the pair picked up gongs for property adviser and property company of the year Wales and South West. 

Stoford is backing Wales and the South West for growth. That's quite a statement from the West Midlands based developer who up until a year or so ago were basically unknown in either region.

Stoford director Dominic Stokes said today that despite being a relative newcomer to the scene it hoped mega deals done to date would put it in a good place to build on their reputation. 'The Midlands is very quiet, it's good to see in Wales and the South West there are a number of occupiers and that's where we see our growth," he said.

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.

More artist impressions of retail proposals, this time Development Securities and S Harrison's Friarsgate retail and leisure scheme in Lichfield (EGi subscribers can read the full story here).

There seems to have been a flood of stories in the last couple of weeks about retail developments and it will be interesting to see if the retailers themselves start to bite at the new space opportunities being dangled particularly at a time when conditions on the high street remain tough.
 



Related stories available to EGi subscribers:
Henderson to develop Silver Hill
Hammerson  wins consent for Eastgate Leeds scheme
Stanhope cleared for Gloucester

Related blog posts (free to access)
Exclusive images of Hammerson's Eastgate Quarters
Retail weathermap forecasts stormy outlook for northern England and Scotland
Who's top of the shops? FSP return burn names the climbers and fallers

Staffordshire
Analysis of development plans
Contact: David Thame, freelance writer, 01544 262 896
dthame@clara.co.uk

Shropshire
Analysis of development plans
Contact: David Thame, freelance writer, 01544 262 896
dthame@clara.co.uk  


 
 

Lot to digest in Chancellor George Osborne's spending review today, with details to emerge over the coming weeks. But here are some initial thoughts and comments from around the country and it's not all bad news:

- Local authority budgets to be cut by 7.1% per year for four years but local authorities will have more control throwing the spotlight on TIF's and LEP's. No doubt the fall-out from this will emerge over the coming months although some councils have already announced budget cuts.

- 150,000 affordable homes to be built in next four years - got to be good news for house builders across the country and those with planning permission for schemes which include social housing.

- Government is planning to raise billions for a green bank to invest in off shore wind farms, carbon capture and other green technologies which could be good news for those parts of the country which have been making noises about creating green technology clusters. Yorkshire Insider is one local news source that has picked up on the potential opportunities.

- Permanent tax levy on banks - details to be announced tomorrow - aimed at raising maximum from banks without risking the UK losing it's competitive edge on the world financial stage. Depending on detail it is unlikely to spark any rapid growth in the banking sector which has historically taken good chunks of office space in the City and Edinburgh.

Transport £30bn invested over next four years including:

Synovate released its retail traffic weathermap this morning. Looking at footfall the retail consultancy says while month-on-month the figures look stable (with no reason, says Synovate, to expect it to crumble this month) comparing the numbers year-on-year there's nothing but grey skies.

Click here to see the full results: Synovate_Weathermap_August2010.pdf

Scotland fared the worse dipping 6.6%, a trend backed up by The Scottish Government's own figures for quarter two. The Herald Scotland reported today that retail sales volumens grew at less than half the rate recorded for the Great Britain as a whole.

EGTV's Helen Roxburgh is in Birmingham for the third part of our regional election special. You can see what Brum property folk such as Ian Stringer of GVA Grimley, Jerry Blackett from Birmingham's chamber of commerce, Barry Allen of Savills and Chris White of
CB Richard Ellis want from their political leaders by popping over to our Midlands blog or you can watch the video on EGi



More regional election special videos:
What would Leeds like after May 6th
Manchester's property professionals attack 'vague' and 'blustering' political policies

View Experian business failures by region Jan 2010 in a larger map

Business insolvencies across the UK are falling, in fact they are at the lowest rate since June 2007. That's the good news from Experian today.

Unfortunately for Yorkshire, it is top of the list of failures with nearly double the amount of businesses going under last month compared to virtually every other part of the country. It's closely followed by the North East.


LOSERS
Yorkshire had the highest rate of failures in January
Scotland was the only region to see a year on year increase in insolvency

WINNERS
Wales had the lowest rate of business failures in January
The South West was the most robust, with the best financial strength score in January
The North East lost the ignoble top spot as the region with the highest insolvency rate decreasing 30%

Greater London saw the highest year-on-year improvement in financial health yet had the lowest overall financial strength score of any region.