England’s regional development agencies have lost 424  staff in total since the general election in May, Public Property UK can reveal.
The bodies, which are due to be abolished by April 2012 and employ around 2,500 staff, have recently finished a first wave of voluntary redundancies and are set to cut …

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 …

Francis Maude has announced that 192  government quangos are set to be axed, and a further 289 to be reformed.
This morning, Cabinet Office minister Maude published the definitive list of bodies to be scrapped including the Infrastructure Planning Commission and development corporations in the Thames Gateway.
The Homes and Communities Agency …

Stephen Hollowood, executive director and head of public sector at GVA Grimley, looks at which parts of the UK will be hit hardest by next Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review:
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The much-anticipated comprehensive spending review will announce funding cuts across all parts of the public sector, although more so for some …

The government is expected to give the go ahead to up to 26 of the 56 local partnerships that are due to replace regional development agencies.
Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Greater Birmingham are three of the local enterprise partnerships that the government is expected to approve.
These groups will be given powers …

Regional development agency One North East has released a list of  projects that will lose out as it makes £32.9m of budget cuts in 2010-11.
Projects including a renewable energy village in Eastgate, the redevelopment of Sheepfolds and Stadium Park, and the Newcastle Science City scheme, will all lose up to …

Trade unions voted to support strikes against public sector spending cuts at the Trades Union Congress annual conference in Manchester yesterday.
Unions said they would resist government plans to cut £83bn of public spending over the next four years, which threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs in the public sector. Members …

More than ten county, unitary, and city councils are in dispute over the size and shape of local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), with eight working days left before they must submit their plans to government.
Councils in Thames Valley, the North East, Thames Gateway and elsewhere have failed to agree over the …

A group of international artists has been shortlisted to design elements of a £19m town centre development in Durham.
Four artists have been shortlisted to submit designs for the St John’s Square in Seaham, which is sponsored by Durham County Council and NHS County Durham and Darlington.
The shortlisted artists include Berkshire-born …

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 …