Housebuilder Berkeley to halt buying new land and hiring staff
One of Britain’s biggest housebuilders has said it will stop buying new land and hiring new staff, as it grapples with the impact of the Iran war on the property market.The London-focused housebuilder Berkeley said it would cut costs as it warned that “geopolitical volatility” and reduced potential for interest rate cuts could weigh on the business.The FTSE 100 company said it would stop buying new land, implement a hiring freeze and employ fewer subcontractors.The group now expects to report more than £1.4bn in pre-tax profit from 2027 to 2030, compared with an earlier forecast for about £450m this year and in 2027.
Shares in the company plunged by 18% on Wednesday morning, making it the worst performer across the FTSE 100.Berkeley said: “In the first two months of 2026, we had begun to see signs of a modest recovery in sales volumes.However … recent geopolitical events and the macroeconomic consequences, including reduced potential for further rate cuts, could reduce confidence in a near-term market recovery.This has now become a reality.”It added that it would stop buying new land because of “unprecedented” increases in costs and regulation, and weak demand from buyers.
The company, which has sites around London and the south-east, no longer believes it can make a sufficient rate of return on new land, which it blamed on a “continuous increase in the tax and regulatory burden on residential development”,The blow to the property market comes as the UK government tries to meet its ambitious targets to build more new housing,Bosses in the sector have said it has struggled against higher taxation and regulation in recent years, such as new building safety rules,Berkeley said the new process “has lengthened the time between obtaining planning approval and starting on site by about 12 months”,Meanwhile, the war in Iran has fed fears around inflation, elevated interest rates and steeper mortgage costs.
Average mortgage rates in the UK have flown past 5% since the start of the conflict, according to the data provider Moneyfacts,Last month the rival housebuilders Barratt Redrow and Persimmon were the worst performing stocks across the FTSE 100, according to analysis by the broker Interactive Investor, with both businesses losing more than 20% of their value,Berkeley, which is headquartered in Surrey, employs more than 2,500 people,Its business model is focused on the development of brownfield regeneration projects in urban areas,It has enough land for 50,000 homes, with a further pipeline for another 10,000 homes, in London and the south-east.
The company said the pace of its construction work on existing sites would be slowed down to match market demand and regulator approvals.
Karl Turner has Labour whip suspended after criticism of Starmer and No 10
The MP Karl Turner has lost the Labour whip after making a series of interventions criticising Keir Starmer and No 10, especially on changes to jury trials.A Labour source said Turner had been informed by the chief whip, Jonathan Reynolds, that he had had the whip suspended because of his conduct. Turner denied he had been informed by the whips and said he had learned about his suspension from journalists.The decision is understood to have been prompted in part by an interview given by Turner, the MP for Hull East, to Jody McIntyre, a campaigner who stood at the 2024 elections against Labour’s Jess Phillips.Turner wrote on X: “I am being told that I have had the whip suspended but I have not had any notification from the whips about this
Opaque party funding affects all of British politics | Letters
While I agree with much of Polly Toynbee’s opinion piece (How will we know Labour is really cleaning up party funding? When Reform and the Tories fight like hell to stop it, 26 March), I was left a little concerned about the tone, which seemingly presented this as uniquely a Tory/Reform UK matter.Dirty money (or just opaque funding) in British politics is not really such a sectarian issue. The proposals would appear to do nothing to prevent a party from accepting, for example, £4m from a hedge fund in the run-up to an election, and not declaring it until afterwards (Labour/Quadrature). Nor would they prevent a party engaging a thinktank that had itself accepted £200m from a rightwing American tech oligarch, bringing them into government, and installing staff in the heart of the policymaking process (Labour/Tony Blair Institute/Larry Ellison of Oracle).But it was heartening to see Toynbee begin to address the way that disparities in funding distort the democratic process
Nigel Farage to snub US conservative conference brought to UK by Liz Truss
Nigel Farage will snub a major conference of US conservatives that is being brought to the UK by Liz Truss.The short-lived former prime minister, who was accused of crashing the economy, was chosen by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to lead a version of the event in the UK in July.She announced this on stage in Texas on Monday while next to Matt Schlapp, commentator and chair of the event, which in the US has hosted major figures including Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tulsi Gabbard and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.However, mainstream conservative figures in the UK seem wary to be associated with the Truss-led event.“We will be steering well clear of it,” a Reform UK source said, dashing any hopes that Farage would attend
Zack Polanski meets unions in attempt to get them to switch party funding to Greens
Zack Polanski has kicked off a charm offensive designed to convince trade unions to stop funding Labour and throw their weight behind the Green party, as he delivered the first in a series of speeches to union conferences.The Green leader has had “good conversations” with 10 trade unions, including some affiliated to Labour, according to party sources, and is due to address the University and College Union and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, not affiliated with Labour, in the coming months.The UK’s largest unions – Unite and Unison – were among those that denied negotiating with Polanski and said they remained affiliated to the Labour party. However, Unite is holding internal discussions about its future relationship with Labour before a special conference in 2027 at which it could potentially decide to disaffiliate.While Green party sources admitted that discussions Polanski had held with individual unions varied in formality, some union insiders were adamant that supporting the Greens would be a no-go area, and that such discussions were “much ado about nothing”
Kemi the attention seeker somehow always makes two plus two equal five | John Crace
Losing sleep over the war in Iran? Worried sick about the cost of living? Can’t pay your energy bills? Then relax. Because Kemi Badenoch has a displacement activity for you.It’s becoming increasingly easy to understand the Conservative leader by viewing her as a hyperactive five-year-old at the back of the class who is constantly disruptive. Who can’t get through a lesson without some kind of attention-seeking behaviour. Who has a constant desire to be indulged even though her first reactions are invariably wrong
Zack Polanski tells NEU teachers’ union that Greens would abolish ‘toxic’ Ofsted – as it happened
The Green party would abolish Ofsted because they view it as a “failed institution”, Zack Polanski, its leader, has told a teaching union conference.Polanski also said that the Greens were opposed to the academisation of schools and that they believe that Labour is not fixing the “failings” in the system by the Tories, but embedding them.In a speech to the National Education Union’s annual conference, Polanski said:double quotation markOfsted is a toxic, failed institution which is harming teachers and children – and it’s time to end it.Talking about school structures more generally, he said:double quotation markThis government’s reforms are simply tinkering around the edges.We need to end the Ofsted era entirely and move towards a genuinely collaborative model
BP is operating in a world of ‘significant complexity’, new boss tells staff
UK food inflation ‘could hit 9% this year’ as Iran war drives up energy prices
The Voorhees law of traffic: when overtaken slow cars seem to always catch up at a red light
Silicon Valley city to give residents doorbells equipped with cameras
ECB accused of allowing non-disabled players to take place of disabled cricketers in top domestic league
From the Pocket: Voss has had every chance to succeed but Carlton backed the wrong coach