Peter Bill
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Author: Broken Homes & Planet Property. Editor: Building (90-6) Estates Gazette (97-09) Columnist: Standard (08-15) Property Week (17-25) EG (09-17 & 25- )
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Articles by Peter Bill
Bill Post: The PM and those Manchester development loans
A feud between Manchester developer Weis Group and the city council, which has long ensnared Andy Burnham, is set to rumble on. Founder Aubrey Weis is to pursue a judicial review of permissions granted to rival developer Renaker in 2023 for 2,388 flats, set in five towers, reaching up to 71 storeys on Great Jackson Street. Distant thunder perhaps to the prime minister, now settled in 10 Downing Street. But Weis has spent over £3m pursuing the council through the courts.
Bill Post: Mike Slade 1946-2026 – RIP a man in full
“A truly great, great man, taken too early,” says former Transport Secretary and Soho Estates chairman Steve Norris, mourning Helical founder Mike Slade, who died last week in London from Alzheimer’s at the age of 80. “His enthusiasm and energy were unsurpassed. A great businessman but an even greater human being. All of us who were privileged to know him loved him.” Most men who knew Slade did love him.
Bill Post: Not nice Norges aids overreaching Prologis
“We work to safeguard and build wealth for future generations” avows Norges Bank Investment Management. Mmm… The £1.77tn Norwegian state piggy bank holds £314,000 for every man, woman and child in Norway. Agreeing to sell its 8.3% stake in Segro to predator Prologis will earn Norges a paper profit of £327m. Made by selling a stake worth £837m before the American shed giant made an opening £12.6bn offer in June.
Bill Post: Odysseus to Andy Burnham – don’t go there
Andy Burnham’s odyssey toward promised land tax reforms will haunt his premiership, if he dare embark. Heeding siren calls from his Northern MPs to replace all property taxes with a single Land Value Tax would have provoked public outcry. Burnham was said to be “persuaded” by the argument for an annual LVT levy.
Bill Post: The centre cannot hold on housing and planning
On the eve of Reform UK’s two-day annual conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on 4 September, deputy leader Richard Tice will lay out the party’s housing and planning policies in a speech to business leaders. The former chief executive of listed property company CLS Holdings will make a new and provocative proposal – that private planning firms be allowed to take casework from over-stretched council planning departments.
Bill Post: Wobbly spin on business rates
Chartered surveyors within the business rates community don’t need telling of the strains being imposed on the appeals system since the 2026 revaluation came into force on 1 April. But RICS members who have forgotten the legal difference between a hereditament and a messuage should turn back to last week’s Estates Gazette to read the alarming four-page article from one of the community elders, John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers.
Bill Post: Old ways simply won’t do at Old Oak
Cabinet secretary Dame Antonia Romeo took a trip to Old Oak Common on 26 June. A sweltering day for the head of the civil service to see how the HS2 station is going. Well enough, apparently. Britan can pour Titanic concrete boxes. But things now get tougher for the governing Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation set up by mayor Boris Johnson on 1 April 2015. Last week the official search began to find a private sector partner for what’s billed as “London’s next big thing”.
Bill Post: Burnham social rent promise will cost £15.6bn
One topic of discussion over breakfast for two with Grainger chief executive Helen Gordon in mid-April was what might be done with an 80-page report penned last October by her savant development director, Michael Keaveney, titled Making Social Rent Homes Viable. Now Starmer’s resigned, the answer becomes obvious: wave it in the face of Andy Burnham, our presumptive PM, who has promised to build only social rent homes, scrapping “intermediate” and shared ownership tiers.
Former Trafalgar House director Geoffrey Carter dies
Geoffrey Carter moved from owning estate agent Marsh & Parsons in the 1960s to become president of the British Property Federation in 1988 and a director of the Grosvenor Estate, roles granted after a 20-year career at Trafalgar House working with the iconoclastic Sir Nigel Broackes, both renown for puffing large cigars. Carter died on 28 May, aged 97. Broackes appointed the 40-year-old surveyor as development director at Trafalgar in 1969, at the start of a spectacular period of growth.
Bill Post: Is a monthly salary of £40,000 fair enough?
Ever dreamt of how you would spend take-home pay of £39,600 a month? My nouveau riche plan would be to dine at The Ritz and splash £840 on a bottle of 2016 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet. Not something you can imagine British Land’s next chief executive Joanne McNamara ever doing. But the 44-year-old fund manager, who joins in November from Oxford Properties, will net close to £40,000 a month, thanks to basic gross pay of £800,000 a year.
Bill Post: Flames lick closer to Burnham man
The closer Andy Burnham gets to power, the hotter the scrutiny. On 9 June in court 74 at the Court of Appeal, three judges heard allegations that a housing fund controlled by the would-be prime minister had granted soft loans to Manchester developer Renaker, run by Daren Whitaker. The case was brought before the Competition Appeal Tribunal by rival developer Aubrey Weis, who lost his case last July but was given leave to appeal.
Bill Post: AI set to outsmart global property agents
In 2017, when Al had the brain of a three-year-old, JLL set aside $100m (£74m) to fund proptech start-ups. At the time, competitors felt the world’s second-largest real estate agency had gone a bit loopy and really should stick to knitting deals together. A question asked here a year ago. JLL had, by then, invested $425m, taking small stakes in 55 real estate-related start-ups, as well as building a series of AI-based software packages for clients. Today’s question is a bit darker.
Bill Post: Labour needs to rebuild for the working classes
The subject of debate in property this week is the Labour leadership psychodrama. There is exasperation at the “damn the country” behaviour of vainglorious candidates. There is irritation at scheming MPs who mutter self-serving half-lies to credulous journalists, then believe what they read. There is weeks of this more to come, longer if you factor in the re-opening of the Brexit wound. Meanwhile ministers slow decision making, fearful for their own future.
Bill Post: Grosvenor – home truths on bad news from abroad
Amemorial service to celebrate the life of Rod Holmes began at 1.30pm in Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral on Friday 8 May. Grosvenor’s development director on the 42-acre Liverpool One project died in February, aged 82. A day earlier his former employer produced a curate’s egg set of results. Good at home, bad abroad.
Estates Gazette - 16 May 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-05-14 05:34:50 BILL POST Peter Bill Grosvenor: home truths on bad news from abroad A memorial service to celebrate the life of Rod Holmes began at 1.30pm in Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral on Friday 8 May. Grosvenor’s development director on the 42-acre Liverpool One project died in February, aged 82. A day earlier his former employer produced a curate’s egg set of results. Good at home, bad abroad.
Bill Post: That Devil Prew dishes up WAGYU
Mike Prew is a bit of a devil who speaks in tongues. Before the markets opened on 29 April, the Jefferies analyst had summoned his 30 years of experience and cut 5% from his share price targets. By close of play £666m had evaporated from the £60bn value of the 40-50 firms that constitute the shrinking UK REIT market. Prew advises the Bank of England commercial property forum and is regularly voted the top property analyst in Europe. Why are property shares overpriced?
Estates Gazette - 9 May 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-05-07 07:17:08 BILL POST Peter Bill That Devil Prew dishes up WAGYU Mike Prew is a bit of a devil who speaks in tongues. Before the markets opened on 29 April, the Jefferies analyst had summoned his 30 years of experience and cut 5% from his share price targets. By close of play £666m had evaporated from the £60bn value of the 40-50 firms that constitute the shrinking UK REIT market.
Bill Post: May judgement day for Merchant
Shades of Private Eye’s Mr Justice Cocklecarrott in a 16 April ruling from Deputy Judge Baister of the Insolvency and Companies Court. Reza Merchant (pictured below), now 37, practically invented “co-living” in Britain, while still in his early 20s. Rooms for post-grads in big cities, run by companies under his “The Collective” brand, which fell into administration in 2021.
Estates Gazette - 2 May 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-04-30 07:57:09 BILL POST Shades of Private Eye’s Mr Justice Cocklecarrott in a 16 April ruling from Deputy Judge Baister of the Insolvency and Companies Court. Reza Merchant (pictured below), now 37, practically invented “co-living” in Britain, while still in his early 20s. Rooms for postgrads in big cities, run by companies under his “The Collective” brand, which fell into administration in 2021.
Bill Post: A power struggle at Battersea
Don O’Sullivan will likely be over 60 before his claim for unfair dismissal against the Battersea Power Station Development Company is heard. The 57-year-old ousted chief executive was in charge between June 2024 and his dismissal in May 2025, fired by his Malaysian bosses for “poor performance, lack of strategic leadership and allegations of misconduct”.
Estates Gazette - 25 April 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-04-23 07:28:08 BILL POST A power struggle at Battersea Don O’Sullivan will likely be over 60 before his claim for unfair dismissal against the Battersea Power Station Development Company is heard. The 57-year-old ousted chief executive was in charge between June 2024 and his dismissal in May 2025, fired by his Malaysian bosses for “poor performance, lack of strategic leadership and allegations of misconduct”.
Estates Gazette - 18 April 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-04-16 06:28:22 BILL POST Peter Bill In heartless pursuit of lost causes Two lost causes – and their causes this week. We will come to the second later. The first cause was finally lost last week. John Lewis threw down the trowel after a fiveyear fight to stack 10,000 rental flats over dozens of Waitrose supermarkets by 2030. The excuse being “market conditions have changed”. Well, they tend to, don’t they?
Estates Gazette - 11 April 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-04-09 08:09:21 BILL POST Will they come if Dubai keeps building? DUBAI: “Defiant Under Bombs Always Indomitable”. So goes the new acronymic mantra. Wednesday’s ceasefire reinforces the lost faith in Dubai as the financial Switzerland of the Middle East. But real estate remains the engine of an economy driven by population growth. The pause will bring relief for staff at CBRE, JLL, Savills and Knight Frank, remembered here on 14 March.
Bill Post: Easter sermon on turning grappa into wine
Easter sermon time, I’m afraid. Opening with an entreaty from the late Pope Francis to a lunch table full of the great and trying-to-be-good, including the then-governor of the Bank of England and now Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney. His Holiness blessed the makers of wine and cursed those who extract grappa from the pomace. Wine embodies humanity’s “passion, curiosity, rationale, altruistic and creative nature”, said Francis. Grappa “is the taste of humanity distilled”.
Estates Gazette - 28 March 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-03-26 08:48:27 BILL POST Peter Bill Landsec strikes oil but pursues dry hole Last week BP announced a shift of its global headquarters. Away from the elegant hush of St James’s Square to a backstreet in Southwark. To a spot backing against railway arches, carrying eight tracks of clacking trains. A sackcloth and ashes move. A penance to the planet from a guilty oil extractor.
Bill Post: Money laundering: fear of exposure is the key
Hands up the individual agents who enabled Iran’s new supreme leader (on Wednesday at least) to steal beneficial ownership of over £100m of property in London. Yes, you lot! Feel any shame? No? Oh, you followed the rules did you? All the KYC boxes ticked. Not for us to know that Ali Ansari, a sanctioned Iranian with ties to the Revolutionary Guard, was buying up Bishops Avenue and mansions in Knightsbridge on behalf of Mojtaba Khamenei? The banks gave the all-clear, did they?
Estates Gazette - 14 March 2026
News Peter Bill 2026-03-12 07:49:14 BILL POST Money laundering: fear of exposure is the key Hands up the individual agents who enabled Iran’s new supreme leader (on Wednesday at least) to steal beneficial ownership of over £100m of property in London. Yes, you lot! Feel any shame? No? Oh, you followed the rules did you? All the KYC boxes ticked.
Bill Post: Nostradamus picks new Segro boss
Disclaimer: The following conclusions on Segro’s succession plans come courtesy of my AI doppelgänger. I simply quizzed ChatGPT out of devilment. Chief executive David Sleath, 64, produced another fine set of results last week, which we will review later. But first, let’s wonder how AI concluded chief financial officer Susanne Schroeter is just the woman for a job Sleath has held with distinction since 2011. Inference? Sleath was Segro’s CFO between 2006-2011. So history must repeat itself?
Network Rail property arm names acting CEO
Andrew Ferguson has been named acting chief executive of Platform4 after Robin Dobson stepped back from the role less than six months after the company’s launch. Platform4 was formed in September 2025 through the merger of London & Continental Railways and Network Rail’s property development arm. The new organisation was created to lead infrastructure-led regeneration across the rail estate, with ambitions to deliver 40,000 new homes alongside 10m sq ft of commercial space over the next decade.
Peter Bill: Chinese in White Tower threat
Kier Starmer had better not mention this tale to president Xi Jinping of China when he meets him in Beijing this week, not even in jest. The new Chinese Embassy lies 250m from the White Tower: the Norman keep within the Tower of London. Well within the range of a strong-armed longbowman in the 13th century, when Henry III ordered land “within an arrow’s flight” of the Tower to remain undeveloped, to prevent enemies from sneaking up too close to the gates. An old legal wives tale, surely? Er… no.
Bill Post: Multiple challenges in store for new Oxford Street quango
On 7 January, a red-on-red attack was mounted on London’s Oxford Street Development Corporation. At its maiden meeting, the Labour leader of Westminster council, Adam Hug, suggested the brainchild of Labour mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, would have been better stillborn. “We would rather this body didn’t exist, and we weren’t here,” said Hug, from his a £14,000-a-year seat on the board.
Bill Post: Piers Scrimshaw-Wright is back from Rock Bottom
It’s dry January, for some. For Piers Scrimshaw-Wright it is another 365 days. He is recovering from an alcohol use disorder. The 54-year-old property professional has been in rehab five times since his early 50s, once during a brief period as head of life sciences at Knight Frank, between late-2021 and spring 2022. A post Piers won given his success at the Oxford Science Park over five years as CEO for the owner, Magdalen College.
Bill Post: Coming leasehold release and Liz Truss sale
Is Kier Starmer a capitalist running dog or does he feel property is theft? A leasehold reform bill was promised by 18 December. On Tuesday 16th, the PM said “he could not guarantee” the date. Groan. Will campaigners ever get to toast a pledge to cap ground rents at £250? Or will Labour cave to freehold interests?
Peter Bill: The threat from AI in the wild
BNP Paribas Real Estate issued 65 redundancy notices last week. A clear signal that the directors of the 1,200-strong UK business unit think 2026 is going to be tough. Others in the agency community are carrying out less public purges, shedding fewer that 20 staff at a time, negating the legal need to circulate easily leaked consultation notices. But it is the outlook for 2030 that is becoming concerning, at least since listening to a senior member of a top 10 firm.
Peter Bill: The £15bn puddle to pool transfer
Those unconcerned by the turbulence new legislation is causing the subset of property which manages real estate funds for local authorities can skip to the RICS presidential saga, or even the return of the tie. Those who wish to study more deeply, turn elsewhere to the May 2025 official publication, Local Government Pension Scheme (England and Wales): Fit for the Future. If that sounds dull, talk to fired managers, peek into the many shuttering funds.
Peter Bill: Realty continues to spend, spend, spend
The activities of Californian Realty Income REIT in the UK are “the talk of the agent community” says one member. “What more are they looking for?” “Are they good to deal with?” “How do I get to see them?” Not surprising. The world’s seventh-largest REIT held 339 properties in Britain covering 30.6m sq ft last December. Since then, 28 assets have been added, taking the total to 367 buildings covering 34m sq ft.
Peter Bill: The kill or be killed realities of 2026
Anxiously seeking assistance on the outlook for next year? Look no further than the lodestar front page of the PwC/Urban Land Institute Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2026 report, published last week. Facing Reality is the title of the 92-page missive, which contains the distilled, anonymised opinions from 1,275 folk who really matter: the financiers, developers and investors who control the game.
Bill Post: Wicked landlords and licencing laws
Ding! Ding! A five-bell alarm for landlords, managing agents, letting agents, politicians and celebs renting in the City of Westminster. At least for those unaware that Rachel Reeves-sized media bombs might explode in your face any time after Monday 24 November. That’s the day over 15,000 renters, in all but the three wards closest to the Palace of Westminster, will be required to spend £995 to prove to the satisfaction of council inspectors that they are not living in squalid hell holes.
Bill Post: New town building, bloody hard, bloody expensive
A sense of foreboding has arisen since Labour announced the location of 12 new towns in September. Fear that a mix of inexperience and timidity, barely masked by red-hat swagger, will see another manifesto pledge diluted. Last Saturday, a House of Lords report condensed the worry under the headline New towns won’t succeed without strong central government leadership and adequate funding.
Estates Gazette 1 November 2025: News
News Peter Bill 2025-10-30 06:55:49 BILL POST Peter Bill New town building: bloody hard, bloody expensive A sense of foreboding has arisen since Labour announced the location of 12 new towns in September. Fear that a mix of inexperience and timidity, barely masked by red-hat swagger, will see another manifesto pledge diluted. Last Saturday, a House of Lords report condensed the worry under the headline New towns won’t succeed without strong central government leadership and adequate funding.
Bill Post: Don’t bother targeting the clowns
COMMENT Take off the clowns. Kemi Badenoch left the Conservative party conference on Wednesday after scorning the net-zero carbon pledge by 2050 as a “failed target”. A Trumpian slight to those in her party who forged that legal requirement. Ten days earlier, Labour housing minister Steve Reed was clowning around in a red cap emblazoned ‘build baby build’, reiterating Labour’s 1.5m homes by 2029 target – alienating supporters who know reaching the moon by balloon would be easier.
Bill Post: Arada - more money or more sense?
Does the new Saudi boss of London developer Regal have more money than sense? Or does Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud’s sense of market timing outweigh his money? On 22 September the founder of Dubai-based Arada bought a 75% stake in the debt-freighted developer in a cycle that can surely descend no lower? Arada is to invest £500m in 150-strong Regal, founded by Paul Eden and Simon de Friend in 1998.
Bill Post: Half-life of rich-running REITs
COMMENT Cui bono? Who stands to gain from the sale of shares in nascent real estate investment trusts? Dozens have floated over the past decade, dozens have sunk, 17 in the past three years, three this month. The latest, Life Science REIT, calling it a day on 19 September. On Tuesday, 23 September, a £30m valuation loss was declared over the six months to June. The list of initial public offering beneficiaries is long. Bankers, lawyers, asset managers, independent directors, and property advisers.
Estates Gazette 27 September 2025: News
News Peter Bill 2025-09-24 18:48:47 BILL POST Peter Bill Half-life of rich-running REITS Cui bono? Who stands to gain from the sale of shares in nascent real estate investment trusts? Dozens have floated over the past decade, dozens have sunk, 17 in the past three years, three this month. The latest, Life Science REIT, calling it a day on 19 September. On Tuesday, 23 September, a £30m valuation loss was delared over the six months to June. The list of initial public offering beneficiaries is long.
Estates Gazette 20 September 2025: News
News Peter Bill 2025-09-17 18:27:30 BILL POST Peter Bill Why Walkley walked from Avison Young Avison Young boss Mark Rose took a gamble in September 2021, hiring Nick Walkley to rule the 1,400 UK employees of the 5,000-strong Toronto-based agent. Walkley also gambled, taking the job against advice. His task was to restructure GVA Grimley, bought by Rose in January 2019. Both lost their bet.
Bill Post: Why Walkley walked from Avison Young
COMMENT Avison Young boss Mark Rose took a gamble in September 2021, hiring Nick Walkley to rule the 1,400 UK employees of the 5,000-strong Toronto-based agent. Walkley also gambled, taking the job against advice. His task was to restructure GVA Grimley, bought by Rose in January 2019. Both lost their bet. Walkley resigned on 9 September, walking out of AY’s spanking new Fitzrovia offices in his signature white trainers.
Bill Post: Which way will Steve Reed bend?
COMMENT Last week’s political earthquake in Westminster did little more than rattle the teacups down Property Street. But exaggeration is a useful tool in bloating self-importance. So the going of housing secretary Angela Rayner and the coming of former DEFRA secretary Steve Reed saw a spew of doomy, misogynistic snobbish spite on social media from property folk dumb enough to think all their clients are cheering them on. Reed, 61, was leader of Lambeth Council between 2006 and 2012.
Estates Gazette 13 September 2025: News
News Peter Bill 2025-09-10 19:08:15 BILL POST Peter Bill Which way will Reed bend? Last week’s political earthquake in Westminster did little more than rattle the teacups down Property Street. But exaggeration is a useful tool in bloating self-importance. So the going of housing secretary Angela Rayner and the coming of former DEFRA secretary Steve Reed saw a spew of doomy, misogynistic snobbish spite on social media from property folk dumb enough to think all their clients are cheering them on.
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