There’s no doubt that moving home is up there with life’s most stressful events. Not only is there the emotional and physical upheaval to deal with, there’s the legal complexity, admin marathon and uncertainty around whether you’ll actually cross the finish line that can leave nerves feeling frayed. ‘When you are thinking of placing your […]
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Optimism returns to housing market, with some crediting ‘Boris bounce’ for revival
House prices rose across the UK for the first time in one and a half years last month as optimism returned among buyers and sellers, according to surveyors and estate agents.
In further evidence that the housing market is picking up, inquiries from would-be buyers, agreed sales and the number of properties coming on to the market all rose in January, according to the latest monthly snapshot from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).
Continue reading...In attributing the £2bn mansion tax to Ed Miliband, and therefore Labour (The Tories say they are for the left-behind: we’ll soon see, 11 February), Polly Toynbee does us Liberal Democrats a disservice. The concept of a special annual tax on expensive houses, dubbed “mansions”, was introduced into UK politics by the Lib Dems in 2009, and is widely associated with our then Treasury spokesperson, Vince Cable.
Peter Wrigley
Birstall, Yorkshire
• Boris Johnson was born in New York and brought to the UK as a child. Is the prime minister at risk of deportation (No 10 dismisses ‘Westminster bubble’ concerns over deportations, 12 February)?
Dr John Doherty
Vienna, Austria
Marshwood Vale, Dorset: On a sunny day three Februarys ago, I squashed the berries on to an apple branch. That March, crooked shoots emerged
It was a shock to see green where I thought all had failed. There it was – a tiny wishbone with a pair of propeller-shaped leaf blades reaching up and out towards the sun. The first shoot of a new mistletoe plant.
Mistletoe (Viscum album) takes a long time to establish. Four Christmases ago, I saved some berries to ripen, a handful of rubbery moon pearls salvaged from the darkest days of winter. They need light or they die, so I put them in a jam jar next to the spider-webbed window of the garden shed.
Continue reading...As the sleep economy grows, online companies vie to sell us new mattresses, offering 100-day returns. This has helped create an impossible waste mountain – and a wild west of rogue recyclers
Mike Scollick and Richard Allsopp are talking about the worst things they ever found in a mattress. “We had one where I think a dog had been lying on it, and the whole thing was just jumping with fleas,” Allsopp says, shuddering. No one would touch it, so they had to use a cherry picker to move it. But that’s not the worst of it, Scollick says: “I stripped the cover off one once and it looked like somebody …” “Died,” interjects Allsopp.
It’s fair to say you need a strong stomach to be in the mattress recycling game. Which Scollick and Allsopp have, along with several million pounds’ worth of equipment in their Coventry warehouse. I have come to see Circom, their mattress recycling firm, at work. It’s a dirty but noble enterprise: Circom is one of only a handful of recyclers tackling the UK’s ever-growing mattress problem.
Continue reading...Marshwood Vale, Dorset: On a sunny day three Februarys ago, I squashed the berries on to an apple branch. That March, crooked shoots emerged
It was a shock to see green where I thought all had failed. There it was – a tiny wishbone with a pair of propeller-shaped leaf blades reaching up and out towards the sun. The first shoot of a new mistletoe plant.
Mistletoe (Viscum album) takes a long time to establish. Four Christmases ago, I saved some berries to ripen, a handful of rubbery moon pearls salvaged from the darkest days of winter. They need light or they die, so I put them in a jam jar next to the spider-webbed window of the garden shed.
Continue reading...Moving to a new area? Top tips to help ease moving house Are you thinking about moving across the country to start again in a new area? Or even to start a new job? The NAEA Propertymark provides five top tips to ensure moving house runs smoothly. Visit the new area It can take six to eight months […]
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