British Land (who own coworking brand Storey) has appointed Joanne McNamara as its new chief executive, with her set to join in November.

Joanne comes from Oxford Properties, where she spent 15 years building a European portfolio worth over £8bn. Samantha McClary of the British Council for Offices highlights this as a strong hire, both for McNamara’s track record and for adding another female CEO to the UK listed property sector alongside Helen Gordon.

Claire-Louise Taylor shares that British Land Workspace are launching a dedicated coworking lab and office space for science and technology founders, featuring specialist lab facilities, and expert lab support.

The Lab Ready Incubator will run at Paper Yard, Canada Water in partnership with Prosemino.

Samantha McClary from the BCO breaks down the recent, and fairly positive, half year results from both British Land and Workspace Group.

British Land’s Simon Carter reported that they’re well positioned to continue to benefit from "the 10M sqft shortage of prime office space in Central London" and that their REIT delivered an underlying profit of £155M for the six months ending Sept 30th, up 8% on the same timeframe in 2024.

Workspace Group’s chief exec Lawrence Hutchings notes that they’ve still got their eye on regaining their "position as flex market leader". Their rental income did dip by 3% to £58.7M over the same period.

In this episode of All Points West, Karl West speaks with James Lowery, CEO of essensys, about his journey from co-founding British Land’s Storey brand to leading the tech firm, and how his background as a GB decathlete shaped his leadership style.