Bye PFI

En passant, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced an end to PFIs - both PFI 1 (conceived under John Major, force fed by Gordon Brown) and PFI 2 (the George Osborne Tesla). This infrastructure-spending model was a con to keep big projects out of the Government's borrowing requirements. Banks, developers and construction firms did deals to create shiny new buildings, hospitals, schools, roads and more on a monstrous hire-purchase variant, with typical 30-year commitments from the users. Thus we have £11.4bn-worth of new hospitals at a total cost of close to £80bn.

It's not long now until the early versions of this sale and lease-back deal come to the end of their 30 years. The BBC, deliberately never allowed to borrow more that £200m, was nudged into PFI-variants by Labour. Thus MediaCity in Salford, Pacific Quay in Glasgow, and 'new' Broadcasting House. 

Broadcasting House was funded through a bond - a £813m 30-year fixed-rate deal, at just over 5% return for investors – the largest single property-backed bond ever in Europe at the time. It matures in 2033, which doesn't seem quite so far away now. The BBC pays out for both rent and facilities management until then - ask 'em how much they've spent so far.  The freehold ? That reverts to the BBC in 2153, so there's a few more leases to sort out until then.