The government’s property tsar John McCready has this morning set out plans to roll out public sector property vehicles across the UK.
McCready, head of the property unit in the Shareholder Executive in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, was making the keynote speech at Property Week and PublicPropertyUK.com’s Public …

As property braces itself for the Comprehensive Spending Review, Nick Johnstone considers the repercussions of a “once-in-a-century” moment in government property policy.
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A scruffy 200,000 sq ft office block is about to come on to the market in Edinburgh. Its occupier, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), is cutting costs …

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has terminated plans to rationalise its training facilities into a single base at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales.
The £14bn private finance initiative project was to involve building a large defence training college in order to vacate sites elsewhere in the country.
The …

Lewisham Borough Council has become the first council in seven weeks to secure funding for a Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project.
Deptford Green School, which is part of the last government’s shelved £55bn school building scheme, can now be built after the council secured £28.5m from financing partners earlier …

In 2004, a lot of people in Newcastle didn’t know that the City Library was a library. From the outside, it was poorly lit and had few windows for people to see inside.
The council felt that it was in serious need of redevelopment, and that it needed to offer Newcastle’s …

The Ministry of Justice’s National Offender Management Service has agreed to a new prison at Belmarsh, London, to be built Skanska and run by by outsourcing giant Serco.
The private finance initiative (PFI)-funded deal has officially closed today, despite question marks over the new government’s commitment to PFI and to building …

The government’s management of its 25 private finance initiative-funded housing projects has been weak and under-resourced, with 21 running over-budget, spending watchdog the National Audit Office has said today.
In its report on PFI in Housing,  published today, the NAO criticises the Department for Communities and Local Government for allowing the …

Lambeth Borough Council has approved a £114m private finance initiative-funded regeneration scheme in Brixton.
Yesterday, the council’s planning team gave the green light to the PFI scheme at Myatt’s Field North housing estate.
The project involves the demolition and rebuilding of 305 homes, the  building of an extra 141 affordable homes, a …

The NHS must do more to force private contractors to share financial gains from hospitals funded by private finance initiative (PFI), the government spending watchdog has said.
Today, the National Audit Office published a report called the Performance and Management of Hospital PFI Contracts, which says the National Health Service (NHS) …

St Helens Council has awarded a £150m Building Schools for the Future to a consortium of Interserve and Barclays Private Equity called Environments for Learning.
Under the contract, Interserve will build two schools, Rainford High Technology College and De La Salle School (performing arts centre pictured), with a combined cost of …