Property Unit head John McCready and British Land chief executive Chris Grigg have been announced today as speakers at the Public Property Summit in November.
Nine headline speakers confirmed for the 1-2 November at the Business Design Centre in London are:
John McCready, Property Unit managing director, Shareholder Executive
Francis Salway, chief executive, Land Securities
Chris Grigg, chief executive, British Land
Nigel Smith, chief executive, Office for Government Commerce
Sir Bob Kerslake, chief executive, Homes and Communities Agency
Ian Ellis, chief executive, Telereal Trillium
Mike Slade, chief executive, Helical Bar
Chris Kane, head of corporate real estate, BBC Workplace
Sir …

The Department for Communities and Local Government has today confirmed details of how it plans to save £1.16bn on grants for local government.
They include a £146m cut to the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant and £160m from PFI schemes.
Today, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles confirmed that local authority funding cuts would be capped at 2%, and CLG published detailed information on how each council’s funding streams would be affected.
The publication aims to make it clearer to councils how to manage their budgets effectively in the light of spending cuts. Those worst …

The government has said the financial arrangements of the Crown Estate could be “modernised” via primary legislation.
Yesterday, it published its response to a Treasury Select Committee report from March which found that the Crown Estate was failing to take “full account” of the public interest in its management of the property portfolio, which includes buildings such as Windsor Castle (pictured).
The response made a series of suggestions, including saying there was “scope  for modernising the financial arrangements to which the Crown Estate is subject.”
Currently, the Crown …

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has called on the coalition to protect investment in housing, as he announced that 26,014 affordable homes had been delivered in London over the past two years.
Speaking at the opening of a supported housing scheme called Arlington in north London, Johnson said London needed to stay on track to deliver 50,000 affordable homes by 2012.
Johnson said: “Despite hugely challenging economic circumstances, we are well underway to deliver a record number of new affordable homes – 50,000 by 2012, including the largest proportion of family …

Croydon Council has agreed the funding for a 250,000 sq ft public service delivery hub, which is the first phase of its regeneration joint venture with John Laing.
The building, which is due to complete in spring 2013, will be the first tangible result of a joint venture between John Laing and the council, called Croydon Council Urban Regeneration Vehicle. The deal, which was agreed in 2008 and is set to end in 2033, aims to implement the Croydon town masterplan.
The new hub will provide space for the council and other …

Chancellor George Osborne has today called on government departments to examine their assets, including property, and consider contracting them out or privatising them.
In a speech to the House of Commons this afternoon, Osborne announced details of how the forthcoming Spending Review will be carried out, which will set spending limits for every government department for 2011 – 2015 after its conclusion this autumn.
Osborne said: “For capital spending, we will undertake a fundamental review of spending plans to identify the areas of …

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The Audit Commission has written to local authorities to announce that Comprehensive Area Assessments have been scrapped with immediate effect, including asset management targets.
Gareth Davies, managing director of local government, housing and community safety at Audit Commission – the local government watchdog – told councils, PCTs, and other public bodies that the coalition was ending the performance assessment, which had good asset management as one of its “key lines of enquiry”.
The letter says: “We are in discussions with the government, the LGA and other representative bodies about the future approach …

Regeneration schemes are to suffer a “potent cocktail” of spending cuts, says Jackie Sadek, chair of the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA), after chancellor George Osborne’s (pictured) £6.2bn cuts announcement last Monday.
The three worst-affected departments will be Business, Innovation and Skills; Communities and Local Government; and Transport (see box, opposite). Sadek says this was bad news for the regeneration sector, because it will leave a gaping hole in finance for schemes across the UK. This has increased nervousness in the sector ahead …

Government bodies are liable for up to £70m in dilapidation fees following a ban on signing new leases and lease extensions without Treasury approval.
Dilapidation consultants expect to cash in on the ban, which was revealed by PublicPropertyUK.com on Monday. It lasts until at least April 2011 and could affect up to 3.5m sq ft of central government and quango-occupied floorspace across the UK.
“We’re waiting to find out the full list of leases that aren’t being renewed, but we expect to pick up substantial work from this,” said Anthony Lorenz, founder …