Format: News

If you were wondering what all the commotion was about in Lancaster Gate on Thursday night, that's where the great and the good of the resi property world descended for its annual knees-up in the guise…

The Daily Mail's been reporting about The Duchess (Middleton) causing strife in the village by replacing traditional Georgian roof tiles with "Barratt Homes" red ones. The horror.

English Heritage has secured an extra £5m to add to it's £80m war chest to help it segue into charity status. Read William Cash's interview with EH boss Dr Simon Thurley here.

Sounds like there's a prime spending spree in the offing; Grosvenor has raised £210m of unsecured long term debt to "help finance forthcoming investment in Belgravia."

PrimeLocation is once again on the prowl for the cream of the property bloggers, opening up nominations for its hotly-contested annual Blog Awards. There are seven categories open to public votes:

Prime developer Northacre is planning to raise around £12.5m through a £4.

Surrey & Berkshire estate agent Aston Mead has acquired its seventh office in the region, buying-up Claud Waterer in Chertsey.

ZPG has announced "clear guidelines" in an effort to rid its portals of private vendors and landlord aggregators.

George Osborne is limbering up right now to deliver his Autumn Statement on the second biggest day of the financial calendar. We'll be covering the relevant bits from 11.15.

The latest batch of measures to speed-up planning procedures and promote "sensible development" has been announced by the government.

Wealth research firm Scorpio Partnership is being bought up by global consultancy giant McLagan (part of Aon Hewitt).

Last year's market prediction from the NAEA kicked off with “I don’t believe we will see a surge in house prices during 2013, as some speculators have suggested", which will resonate very differently…