The Observer: "‘It’s become a wasteland’: Britons on how shopping centres have changed"

 

Link to The Observer

"Shopping centres across the UK have declined in recent years, as store closures and online shopping change consumer habits for good.

According to a report by the property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton, about 60 of the UK’s 500 bigger shopping centres are likely to be razed, and a further 200 could be partially demolished."

The Guardian: "‘They’ve taken the heart out of Bolton’: the demise of the UK shopping centre"

Link to The Guardian

"Bolton council, which bought Crompton Place for almost £15m from the Santander pension fund in 2018, plans to knock it down, saying the town has 'a surplus of retail space'. In its place the council says it wants to build a more attractive area that it hopes will attract new tenants to empty sites around the main square and nearby streets, as part of a £1bn town centre redevelopment.

Crompton’s demise is echoed in towns and cities across the UK. Tired shopping centres have become one of the biggest obstacles to reviving high streets. Often hemmed in by buildings and hugely expensive to overhaul, they have turned from assets to liabilities – victims of a vicious cycle of store closures. Councils are increasingly becoming the owners of last resort, buying shopping centres from investment funds."

Evening Standard: "Hammerson sees close to £1.6bn wiped off estate value as pandemic hurts retail property sector"

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"Close to £1.6 billion was wiped off the value of shopping centres firm Hammerson's property empire in a year that saw the pandemic clobber retailers and their landlords.

Chief executive Rita-Rose Gagné said the landlord in 2020 suffered its largest fall in net rental income and UK asset values since the group was founded in 1942.

Hammerson, a joint owner of the Brent Cross mall and behind Birmingham’s Bullring centre, was hit as numerous businesses were forced to temporarily close sites for lockdowns."

Warrington Guardian: "Intu collapse: What will happen now to the shopping centres?"

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"The owner of the UK's biggest shopping malls, including the Trafford Centre, Intu has tumbled into administration after failed crunch talks with its lenders.

"The shopping centre owner said it has applied to appoint administrators from KPMG, after warning earlier on Friday that it was on the verge of collapse.

"The confirmation came minutes after the London Stock Exchange suspended shares in the listed firm."

Estates Gazette: "Argent Related presses go on Brent Cross offices"

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"... 'Brent Cross will be nothing like King's Cross,' says Nick Searl, Argent Related partner and joint lead on the Brent Cross South development. 'We’re not trying to copy what we did there. It is a completely different place. Brent Cross has a very different existing perception. And it’s something that we are going to have to work really hard to shift.'

"He's not lying. Google 'Brent Cross' and you are not greeted with pages and pages of rave reviews, of blogs fawning over the community, the amenities or the Happiness Index. You are greeted with images of a rather depressing shopping centre and not much else.

"... A consent earlier this month for a new Brent Cross West Thameslink station means that by 2022 there will be a direct line into King's Cross that takes just 12 minutes, the area already boasts an existing Tube station on the Northern Line taking people into (or out of) Old Street and the City, it sits at the foot of the M1 giving easy access to the Oxford Cambridge arc, and within an hour you can be at any one of five airports." [That's enough items in a list. Ed.]

Evening Express: "Chairman of Bullring and Brent Cross shopping centres quits"

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"The chairman of struggling shopping centre owner Hammerson has announced he will quit on the same day its sites, including Birmingham's Bullring and Brent Cross in north London, reopened non-food stores for the first time since lockdown.

"David Tyler said he would quit no later than October 1 and be replaced by former Land Securities chief executive Rob Noel, the company confirmed.

"The decision comes less than a month after chief executive David Atkins quit, following years of over-expansion which has left the business with a massive financial black hole."

BBC: "Climate change: 'Gob-smacking' vision for future UK transport"

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"People in the UK need to shift from cars to public transport to address the challenge of climate change, the government says.

"Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "'Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities. We will use our cars less and be able to rely on a convenient, cost-effective and coherent public transport network.'

"They are made in the foreword to the government's De-Carbonising Transport consultation."

Inside Croydon: "[Brent Cross and Croydon's] Hammerson’s £781-million loss points to end of the shopping mall"

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"Anyone clinging to the faint hope that the publication this morning of Hammerson's annual report would offer encouragement about the prospects of a new super mall in Croydon town centre were quickly disabused when the company’s chief exec issued a statement which included the doom-laden verdict: 'The magnitude of the challenge facing UK retail is significant.' But then, David Atkins' company's losses for the last 12 months were £500-million more than in 2018.

" 'We are reviewing plans for Brent Cross and Croydon ... to ensure the developments address changing customer and occupier requirements and include a greater mixed-use element than originally planned,' Atkins, the Hammerson CEO, said in his report.

"Hammerson has been flogging off shopping centres in the past year to reduce their debts (since July 2018, they have sold 14 retail parks, generating £764million). They are certainly not building any news ones and incurring new debts."

The Independent: "A car-free future? How UK cities are moving towards a pedestrian age"

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"Rush hour, York city centre, sometime around the end of the decade. Stress-free commuters glide by on bicycles, community gardens are tended by volunteers as they leave work, and early evening diners spill outside on to table-filled squares.

"Over in Fossgate, a mid-week street festival is just beginning. At the station, a line of on-demand driverless pods whisk arriving rail passengers to their end destinations.

"Such is what this North Yorkshire city could look like if proposals approved by the council to make the centre car free by 2023 come to fruition. Or so say advocates."

Barnet Times: "Barnet ward boundary map re-drawn"

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"The electoral map of Barnet has been re-drawn to ensure local politics remains representative as the borough’s population grows.

"... The changes, which are due to take effect in 2022, are designed to ensure the number of voters represented by each councillor is roughly the same across the borough while maintaining community identities.

"They include the creation of a Cricklewood ward and the division of Colindale into separate Colindale North and Colindale South wards."

[Reposted] Brent Cross West station: extra 8-car platforms for the Dudding Hill Line from west London - but not in planning application!

Alternative station designs (Bedford is to the left, St Pancras to the right)

WLO Brent Cross West Interchange Feasibility Study Report Rev P02 (1) by scribdstorage on Scribd

November 2018: Brent Cross West station:
'reserved matters application'.

HS2 Ltd: "We invite your feedback on the design of HS2’s Common Design Elements planned for the Phase One route between the West Midlands and London"

"Common Design Elements are parts of the railway with a standardised appearance which will give it a recognisable look and make it more efficient to build. They include frequently used structures, such as bridge piers and parapets, as well as lineside noise barriers.

"Since Parliament approved plans for the Phase One route in 2017, we've been developing the design of the new railway and now we need your views to help inform how we progress with the Common Design Elements.

"You can view the plans on the HS2 website and download an information booklet, before completing our quick online survey. The survey closes at 11pm on Thursday 30 January 2020."

[Reposted] Transport for London: The 'West London Orbital' in Barnet, at Hendon, Brent Cross West and Cricklewood

2019-09 TfL WLO TEG 190925 Kumapley Slides 1-37 (1) by scribdstorage on Scribd

The Guardian: "Mass consumerism is destroying our planet. This Black Friday, let's take a stand"

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"... Today, in austerity Britain (and, yes, for all the talk of spending promises, austerity is still here), the idea of excessive consumerism seems to have lost much of its resonance. Memories of consumerism and easy credit seem to have become tainted by the recession. Academics have observed how Britons felt ashamed of their pre-crash consumerism and (wrongly) felt personally accountable for the austerity that followed, identifying particular consumer objects – such as expensive tracksuits and conservatories – as symptomatic of a flaw in the national character.

"For many consumers, shopping has become mixed with guilt and a sense of responsibility as it increasingly depends on credit card debt and the labour of poorly paid and precarious workers – and it has a heavy environmental toll. Buying something today is also an experience drained of fun: it often entails making sure you are in when the package arrives, unpacking it and realising that it isn’t what you wanted.@

Room 151: "PWLB rate hike sends shockwaves through council finance sector"

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"Whitehall today threw a hand grenade into local authority borrowing plans by announcing a whole percentage point increase in the rate of borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB).

"Borrowing from the loan facility has continued to increase at a rapid rate in recent years due to record low rates on offer – with many using the money to invest in commercial property to produce a financial return to invest in services.

"In a letter to chief finance officers at local authorities sent on Wednesday, the Treasury's local government and reform team called a brutal halt to that spree with the rise, which takes immediate effect."

Barnet Times: "Delayed Barnet regeneration scheme [by developer Hammerson] is 'being revised'" (As in trying to revive a dead parrot.)

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"A plan for part of a major regeneration scheme that was put on hold last year is being revised, a council official has confirmed.

"New plans for the Brent Cross North scheme – set to include a revamped shopping centre – are expected to be submitted to Barnet Council in the next few months.

"It comes as the traditional UK retail market continues to face challenges from the rise of online shopping."

Yahoo: "Hammerson swings to loss amid challenges to retailers"

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"[Brent Cross] owner Hammerson has unveiled stinging losses as its portfolio of shopping centres slumped in value amid challenges to the high street.

"The retail property firm swung to a loss of £319.8 million in the six months to June 30, compared with a £55.7 million profit this time last year. On an adjusted basis, which is the company’s preferred measure, profits were down 10.5% to £107.4 million.

"The headline loss was largely down to a £423.4 million net revaluation loss on its property portfolio in the first half, as continuing market uncertainty and a slowdown in leasing affected value, especially in the UK. More than half of this was down to its flagship shopping destinations in the UK, which had a revaluation deficit of £266 million."

Evening Standard: Building on tube station car parks

Room 151: "The future for outsourcing after Barnet formula cracks"

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"Internal reviews are rarely news but the announcement by London Borough of Barnet that it was reassessing its outsourcing deal and bringing key services back inhouse was a major moment.

"The decision by councillors, which was not widely publicised, was that 'the director of place role and the skills, employment and economic development (SEED) team from within the regeneration service, and the safety, health and wellbeing (SHaW) service, be returned to the council, subject to completion of the necessary financial due diligence.'

"Added to this, the council will decide in the autumn the future contractual arrangements with Capita for staff involved in the management and governance of the Brent Cross Cricklewood development scheme.

"Finance and Strategic HR had already transferred back to Barnet Council from Capita in April and the firm has already paid more than £4m in compensation."

Palmers Green Community: "Preliminary meeting about plan to build housing on Arnos Grove station car parks"

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"I braved the appropriately wet weather and went to this event this afternoon. There were quite a number of (vocal) people there and very little in the way of detail. I gleaned the following.

"This is (I was told) deliberately a preliminary consultation to see how locals react. A further consultation will take place later in the year, supposedly when more flesh will be on the bones. A similar event was held last night about similar plans for Cockfosters.

"Housing comprising 150 units is envisaged for the two Arnos car parks. The developer is Grainger plc, a long-established builder and rental landlord."