Having left you on tenterhooks a month ago, it would be remiss of us not to update you on goings on up in Weatherfield, where residents of the nation’s most beloved street face being chucked out on their ears to make way for a swanky new tower block. Showing an admirable grasp of the drawn-out planning process, Coronation Street scriptwriters did not resolve the redevelopment plotline during the soap’s 60th anniversary week, nor during its Christmas and New Year episodes – but things have moved on. The local planning committee has given its approval, and the Manc-iavellian mastermind behind the scheme, Ray Crosby, has moved quickly, serving early eviction notices on those who opted to take his money and sell up. Along the way, conversations over hotpot at the Rovers Return have turned to such things as heritage assets, viability and section 106 agreements. Key scenes could be edited together as a public information film about how our planning system works… as well as a useful reminder of the need to read the smallprint when entering into any agreement to sell property. Of course, it is still a soap opera, so there have been scenes of the clearly corrupt chair of the committee getting cosy with Crosby in one of his hotels. And the suspicion remains that his history as a persistent sex pest will be what ultimately puts paid to the scheme, rather than a successful judicial review. But who knows – maybe our coverage will soon have to move from Diary to the Legal & Professional pages?
Won’t somebody please think of the children?
Diary sincerely hopes you hear that question in the voice of ever-concerned minister’s wife Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons, because we sure do. Anyway, Coventry-based construction firm Deeley Group is giving thought to the nation’s youth during lockdown, stepping up to help plug the gap in schoolkids’ work experience opportunities caused by the pandemic. Deeley has signed up to Built Environment Skills in Schools’ on-demand Virtual Work Experience platform, which offers real-world challenges that allow students to explore the broad scope of the construction industry. Business development manager Edward Hudson said: “We were excited to create a 45-minute virtual work experience task that students can complete in their own time and learn more about the work we do. We are so proud of the exciting and complex projects we deliver for our clients, but sometimes it can be difficult to explain what we do to young people. BESS has built a great platform to support their extensive network of schools, and it was a no-brainer for us to use our own in-house skills and expertise to develop a challenging student task.” So, if home-schooling during lockdown 3 is making you tear your hair out, why not immerse your darlings in the built environment at https://virtualworkexperience.beskillsinschools.co.uk
A tweet map of the UK
Has the removal of Donald Trump from Twitter left a major hole in your social media diet? We may just have the replacement followee for you – they are every bit as prolific, but a heck of a lot more factual, and the only thing they’re inciting is geographical awareness. May we introduce @EveryPostcode, who, in a straightforwardly Ronseal-esque approach, have set about tweeting pictures of every single postcode in the UK, one image at a time, starting in Scotland. They joined in November, and have racked up 18,000 tweets in two months (around 142 for each of their – so far – 127 followers). Well, it’s one way to spend lockdown. At time of writing, they have made it all the way to DD11 4EN – that’s Elmfield Avenue in Arbroath, in case you wondered. With 1.7m live post codes in the UK, Diary has worked out on the back of an envelope that they’ll be at it for around 16 years. At which point, one can only hope that technology will allow them to print every single image on suitable stock to create what would surely be the world’s most demanding jigsaw.
Universities challenged
A university league table with Oxford and Cambridge nowhere to be seen? That’s what we have for you, courtesy of student accommodation platform UniHomes, which has ranked the universities that currently offer the best option for landlords in the student sector. It analysed market data around the top 50 UK universities to find which offer the most profitable buy-to-let investment based on the current average rental yield in each university postcode. The University of Southampton takes the top spot, with a yield of 7.4%, ahead of the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University – the former’s NG7 postcode boasting slightly higher profitability than the latter’s NG1. The Universities of Newcastle, Dundee, Cardiff, Leicester, Strathclyde, Kent and Warwick complete the top 10 – but it’s all a matter of degrees.
Mortgages or less-gages
We keep being told how lockdown is making everyone re-evaluate how they work and, as a result, where they want to reside. It seems like an ideal opportunity to bring some much-needed efficiency to our lives – and Coulters Property has done the sums for us to work out where in the country people must work the least hours in order to pay off their mortgage. Calculating average house prices and salaries in every major town and city in the UK, and assuming a 15% deposit, Coulters found that Sunderland is the place to be if you want to shift that millstone from your neck most quickly: only 988 work days are required to pay off the typical mortgage (though, one assumes, you’ll need a bit longer if you also want to enjoy things like food, water, power and the internet, never mind avocados). Stoke-on-Trent is second (1,017) and Dundee third (1,030) – which (combined with the student accommodation yield above) means that Dundee is definitely the place to be. Other great places to pay off your mortgage tout suite include Middlesbrough, Hull, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Blackpool, Liverpool and Bradford. But if your life plan involves no prospect of retirement and ultimately popping your clogs at your desk, there will be little surprise that London is the place for you. There it takes more than three times as long to clear your property debt (3,061 days). The latest in the ongoing Diary series: why does anyone want to be in the capital? Having missed out on the University list, the champagne corks may be popping in Oxford and Cambridge (second and third on the list). Other woefully inefficient places to live include Brighton, Bournemouth, Watford, Slough, Southend, Bristol and Reading.
