In the dataset you can find the date of sale for each property, its full address and sale price, its category (residential or commercial) and type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat or maisonette and other), whether it is new build or not and whether it is freehold or leasehold.

The number of sales received for registration by property type and month

Of the 85,249 sales received for registration in February 2018:

• 61,237 were freehold, a 3.7% increase on February 2017

• 16,133 were newly built, a 11.8% increase on February 2017

There is a time difference between the sale of a property and its registration at HM Land Registry.

Of the 85,249 sales received for registration, 23,559 took place in February 2018 of which:

• 378 were of residential properties in England and Wales for £1 million and over

• 216 were of residential properties in Greater London for £1 million and over

• 2 were of residential properties in Cardiff for £1 million and over

• 1 was of a residential property in Greater Manchester for £1 million and over

The most expensive residential sale taking place in February 2018 was of a terraced property in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London for £10,750,000. The cheapest residential sale in February 2018 was of a terraced property in Chester le Street, County Durham for £19,000.

The most expensive commercial sale taking place in February 2018 was in the City of London, for £75,972,945. The cheapest commercial sale in February 2018 was in Macclesfield, Cheshire for £250.

Access the full dataset

Notes to editors

1. Price Paid Data is published at 11am on the 20th working day of each month. The next dataset will be published on Monday 30 April 2018.

2. Price Paid Data is property price data for all residential and commercial property sales in England and Wales that are lodged with HM Land Registry for registration in that month, subject to exclusions.

3. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies. It typically ranges between two weeks and two months. Data for the two most recent months is therefore incomplete and does not give an indication of final monthly volumes. Occasionally the interval between sale and registration is longer than two months. The small number of sales affected cannot be updated for publication until the sales are lodged for registration.

4. Price Paid Data categories are either Category A (Standard entries) which includes single residential properties sold for full market value or Category B (Additional entries) for example sales to a company, buy-to-lets where they can be identified by a mortgage and repossessions.

5. HM Land Registry has been collecting information on Category A sales from January 1995 and on Category B sales from October 2013.

6. Price Paid Data can be downloaded in text, CSV format and in a machine readable format as linked data and is released under the Open Government Licence (OGL). Under the OGL, HM Land Registry permits the use of Price Paid Data for commercial or non-commercial purposes. However, the OGL does not cover the use of third party rights, which HM Land Registry is not authorised to license.

7. The Price Paid Data report builder allows users to build bespoke reports using the data. Reports can be based on location, estate type, price paid or property type over a defined period of time.

8. HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales.

9. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. It operates as an executive agency and a trading fund and its running costs are covered by the fees paid by the users of its services. Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.

10. HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth in excess of £4 trillion, including around £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains more than 25 million titles showing evidence of ownership for some 85% of the land mass of England and Wales.

11. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.

12. Follow us: on Twitter@HMLandRegistry, our blog, LinkedInand Facebook.

Contact

As a result of the bravery and determination of the women who brought this challenge, the experience of victims will be better and there will be much simpler ways to challenge our decisions in the future.

Here is a link to the full judgement

It was clear before the Worboys case arose that there was a compelling case for major reform of the parole system. This judgment will now open up the decision making of the Board which we have been calling for.

The Parole Board are not seeking to challenge the outcome of this case and the Worboys case will now be re-referred to the Parole Board. The court acknowledged that this was an unusual and complex case and we want any decision to be made on the best possible evidence.

The Chair Professor Nick Hardwick has since resigned from the Parole Board.

Chief Executive Martin Jones said: “Parole Board members make incredibly difficult and complex decisions every day that can have a devastating impact on victims and the case of John Worboys is no different. The courts have decided we must go back and look at this case again in light of additional information that wasn’t before the original panel and we will do just that.

“Nick Hardwick and I have always been clear that we will support our members when they face criticism in making these important decisions. I am deeply sorry that Nick Hardwick has decided to resign, he is a man of real integrity, and I have been proud to work with him.”

Notes to Editors

Professor Nick Hardwick’s letter of resignation is attached here.

The Parole Board are not seeking to challenge the outcome of this case but are still working through the wider implications of the judgment.

The Worboys case now need to be re-referred to us by the Secretary of State and an oral hearing will likely take place in the next few months. It will be chaired by a senior member of the Judiciary.

The court was clear that the Parole Board is the best people to make decisions of this nature. Our serious further offence rate is less than 1%, that shows we are affective at making these difficult decisions.

As Rule 25 still stands at present and the case is now under consideration again, we are not currently able to comment on the details of the case.

Chief Executive Martin Jones will not be available for interview. For more information, please contact comms@paroleboard.gov.uk or 020 3880 0809

We met this afternoon to consider the implications of the judgment in the Worboys case.

I want to repeat my admiration for the courage and tenacity of the women who brought the judicial review. Their success will have consequences that go far beyond this individual case and will benefit victims and the administration of justice for years to come.

I am very pleased that the court declared the Rule that prohibits the Parole Board from explaining its decisions should go and that the judgment recognised that this was something I had been calling for. I am pleased too that as a result of Dame Glenys Stacy’s investigation into victim communication in the case, these processes will be improved in future and that she made no criticism of the Parole Board’s actions in this matter. I am also confident that as a result of this case a much simpler system for reviewing Parole Board decisions will be established and, as I have already made clear in my submission to you, this is something I would very much welcome.

Consistent with these principles, I have been clear throughout the legal processes that followed the decision in the Worboys case that I welcomed the scrutiny to which it was subject. I instructed that there should be no procedural moves to prevent such scrutiny, as the judgment indicated could have been made, and that our disclosure of material relating to the case should be as full as possible. I am as anxious as everyone else that the correct decision should be made.

The court was critical of some aspects of the panel’s decision-making processes although it did not overturn the panel’s decisions on these grounds. It could not, no more than you or I, put itself in the place of the expert and experienced panel members who heard the evidence and made the decision. The court did however find that the panel’s understanding that it could not go beyond the offences for which Worboys was convicted was mistaken in this “difficult, troubling case with many exceptional features.” I shared the panel’s misapprehension in this matter and this was supported by the advice I received. We were wrong.

You told me that you thought my position was untenable. I had no role in the decision of the panel in the case and believe I am capable of leading the Parole Board through the changes, many of which I have advocated, that will now be necessary. I am sorry for the mistakes that were made in this case but I have always made it clear that I will support the members and staff of the Board in the very difficult individual decisions they make and I will accept accountability for the work of the Board. I will not pass the buck to those who work under me. In these circumstances I inform you of my decision to resign with immediate effect.

In conclusion, I want to state my concern about the independence of the Board. I believe this matter raises very troubling questions about how the Board’s independence can be safeguarded. I hope Parliament will consider what structural changes are necessary to ensure this independence is protected in future.

Welcome to this session on smart cities.

Before we turn to the panel, I’d like to speak briefly about why what we’re discussing today is so important to us all.

There’s a saying you may have heard that ‘demography is destiny’. In the long run, big demographic trends dwarf most of the day-to-day issues governments spend their time thinking about.

Well there’s no bigger trend in the world today than the move to urbanisation. By 2050, it’s expected three-quarters of the world’s people will live in cities.

It’s easy to forget how new this is, but for hundreds of thousands of years we humans have been rural. It is no longer true, and we haven’t even begun to get used to it.

This change is especially significant in China – Shenzen, across the bay, had 30,000 people 40 years ago. Now its daytime population is 18 million.

Even in long-urbanised countries like the UK, city living is back. From the 1930s to the ‘80s London, like many cities, experienced a long, slow population decline as people moved out and commuted in.

Most commentators thought this was permanent, that it was inevitable. The so-called ‘hollowing out’ of major cities in this period is where the negative stereotype of inner cities took hold.

But now London’s population is bigger than ever, and those who do live in London are more likely to live towards the centre. The inner city is now wealthier than ever before. This is a pattern repeated right across the world.

It’s very clear city living presents unique opportunities and unique challenges. People who live in them are healthier and wealthier than those who don’t. And smart cities – the melding we have now of that digital technology and data science to improve our urban environment – is what we will need to harness those opportunities.

We in Britain are genuine believers in the power of smart cities. We’re early adopters: Manchester’s MediaCityUK is, as I would call it, a 40-acre sandbox, testing in miniature what the smart cities of the future might look like.

We’ve supported our belief with significant funding – we recently created a £1.7 billion Transforming Cities Fund.

Importantly, we understand that smart cities don’t just need funding – they need data. London now releases 700 separate types of datasets to help developers and entrepreneurs create solutions to London’s problems.

And for those of you who were here for Professor Dame Wendy Hall’s speech earlier you will have heard that that access to information is fundamental to city development.

We’ve already seen tangible benefits from this: the CityMapper App, which helps users navigate with real-time data, began when London’s transport authority published datasets they already held for internal planning. It’s now available in 33 cities around the world, including here in Hong Kong.

They’re continuing to innovate: quite a few transport companies have launched their own apps, but CityMapper must be the only app to launch its own bus service.

But we’re not just here today to talk about smart cities. I am sure all of us here agree on the benefits. We’re specifically here to discuss how we make sure the smart cities of the future are based on the individual and improving the lives of individual citizens.

Earlier, I talked about how predictions of London’s population decline had been wrong. We should be humble about our power to predict the future and foresee every consequence: because we cannot relive the mistakes of the urban planners of the 1950s and ‘60s.

That means starting with the individual citizen and what they actually want and need. That’s easier said than done, and I’m sure the fantastic panel will offer insight and suggestions.

But let me give you 2 thoughts, to kick off the discussion.

One: technology is not the solution, it really is only part of the solution.

Improved technology only works if it’s part of an improved process.

In Britain we’ve been lucky, because citizen-centred technology has come exactly at the right time for us.

Since 2010 we’ve had a big drive to make every public service ‘digital by default’.

But because there’d already been a strong desire to redesign public services around users, since at least the early ‘90s, digitalisation came as a natural, organic outgrowth of something we were already doing, not something we just bolted-on.

Two: as the saying goes, when you have a hammer, every problem is a nail. But technology should always be a solution to a problem, it should not be a solution looking for a problem to retrofit.

In the UK we look at the practical, day-to-day problems people face – is their bin collected on time; is their train overcrowded at rush hour – and we see how technology can help.

For example, every city lacks space. But Ordnance Survey, and I know the team is here today, is releasing its geospatial data, so we can make better use of the space we have.

Every city suffers from congestion. But Northern Ireland’s Seesense has developed a bike light that flashes more brightly at junctions. That makes cycling safer, so more people cycle – so we can make better use of the infrastructure we already have and lead healthier lives.

And every city is more polluted than the countryside around it. That’s why in Bristol and Milton Keynes we’re using sensors to monitor air pollution, and why Glasgow is pioneering smart grid technologies.

Urbanisation is one of the most important trends in the world today. We need to see this trend as an opportunity, not a threat. But it’s only by making our cities smart, understanding how we can apply that technology that we can take full advantage.

In Britain we’re already taking advantage – and our technology companies, consultancies, architects and planners can help you take advantage too.

But we should always remember: smart cities are not about making our cities ‘fit for the future’ – they’re about making the future fit, for the future of our citizens.

• More than £150 million will be jointly invested by government and industry to help the country’s world-leading cultural and creative businesses thrive as part of landmark Sector Deal
• Britain’s creative industries are worth £92 billion, employ two million people and are growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy
• New Cultural Development Fund will see cities and towns have access to £20 million to invest in culture and creative industries
• Plans to nurture and develop the next generation of creatives include industry-led careers programme and a new London Screen Academy

BRITAIN’s world-leading creative industries are set to consolidate the country’s position as a global creative powerhouse, following a groundbreaking new Industrial Strategy deal agreed between Government and the Creative Industries Council (CIC) on behalf of the sector.

As part of a Creative Industries Sector Deal, to be announced today by the Digital and Culture Secretary Matt Hancock, Business Secretary Greg Clark and Co-Chair of the CIC, Nicola Mendelsohn, more than £150 million is being jointly invested by Government and industry to help cultural and creative businesses across Britain thrive.

A Cultural Development Fund will also be launched for cities and towns to bid for a share of £20 million to invest in creative and cultural initiatives. The power of culture and creative industries to boost economic growth is evident across the country. In Hull nearly 800 jobs have been created and almost £220 million invested in Hull’s tourism and cultural sectors since the city was named UK City of Culture 2017. And in Bristol creative hubs like the Bristol Temple Quarter are delivering thousands of jobs in design, media and music businesses.

The Sector Deal aims to double Britain’s share of the global creative immersive content market by 2025, which is expected to be worth over £30 billion by 2025. To seize on the opportunity of this expanding market, government is investing over £33 million in immersive technologies such as virtual reality video games, interactive art shows and augmented reality experiences in tourism.

Britain is already leading the way in developing immersive technologies. PWC have predicted that the UK’s virtual reality industry will grow at a faster rate than any other entertainment and media industry between 2016-2021, reaching £801 million in value, and that by 2021 there will be 16 million virtual reality headsets in use in the UK.

Improving the nation’s skills is at the heart of the Government’s modern Industrial Strategy and to ensure the industry has the skilled workers it needs to deliver this, up to £2 million will be made available to kickstart an industry-led skills package, including a creative careers programme which will reach at least 2,000 schools and 600,000 pupils in two years. A new London Screen Academy, with places for up to 1000 students, will also open in 2019.

Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns said:

Creativity is in our blood in Wales, and the industry provides valuable jobs and opportunities for thousands of people across the country.

Today’s announcement will ensure the sector continues to thrive, boosting the Welsh economy and supporting our businesses to continue promoting their excellent work worldwide.

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Matt Hancock, said:

Britain’s creative industries are an economic and cultural powerhouse and this ambitious deal will make sure they continue to thrive as we build a Britain fit for the future.

Our creative industries will help develop the talent of the future, ensure people are rightly rewarded for their creative content and give our firms the support they need to compete on the global stage. Millions of people around the world enjoy our world-class artistic and cultural output and we want Britain to stay a frontrunner in these vibrant sectors.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said:

The Industrial Strategy is all about building on our existing strengths and seizing the opportunities of the future. Our creative industries have been, for centuries, world renowned and at the forefront of innovation. That’s why I was determined to place the Creative Industries at the heart of our Industrial Strategy.

To boost this innovation, we put the creative industries at the heart of our ambitious Industrial Strategy and this joint deal is a landmark moment for our relationship with this world-leading sector. By working together with universities and industry, and by investing £150 million, we will unlock growth across the UK.

The Deal is evidence of our continued commitment to our world leading creative sector, establishing a partnership that can build on the UK’s position and reputation as one the most creative places on earth.

Nicola Mendelsohn, Co-Chair of the Creative Industries Council, said:

This breakthrough deal represents a huge vote of confidence in our creative industries to continue to deliver the world class economic performance and workforce that the UK needs. We look forward to working together with Government to realise its full benefits and the potential of the creative industries in all parts of the UK.

Investment in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Creative businesses are constantly innovating, matching creativity with technology to develop exciting new products and new ways to engage growing audiences. To seize on the opportunity of this expanding market, immersive technologies such as virtual reality video games, interactive art shows and augmented reality experiences in tourism, will receive over £33 million of government funding.

Exceptional growth is forecast for the virtual reality and video game sectors in the next five years with UK consumer spending on video games set to reach £5 billion by 2021.

Government will also support the highly successful UK Games Fund with an additional £1.5 million over the next two years so that it can further boost young entrepreneurs and new product creation in the trailblazing games sector.

The UK’s video games industry is already established as the largest in Europe and the fifth largest globally, and this investment will drive growth further.

Flagship film studios expansion

Film studios across the country are increasing their capacity to keep up with demand for production space, including multi-million pound expansions at Pinewood and Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, as well as significant new projects such as Pacifica Ventures’ £100 million investment in Barking and Dagenham and Liverpool’s Littlewoods Studios.

Over the last five years inward investment in Britain’s film and high-end TV industries has grown by more than 100 per cent to over £2 billion production expenditure a year, and with the right conditions that annual figure could double again by 2025.

The Sector Deal demonstrates business confidence and investment opportunities in the sector, is at an all-time high. Britain’s creative industries are worth £92 billion, employ two million people and are growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy. The sector includes music, fashion, design, arts, architecture, publishing, advertising, video games and crafts.

The deal contributes to the Industrial Strategy’s vision of good jobs, greater earning power for all, and prosperous communities across Britain. It aims to unlock future growth across Britain, create jobs and develop the cutting-edge technology of the future. The creative industries already export substantially more than their share of the economy and growth at home will also help power the sector to make further strides abroad.

The commitments include:

• Research Council to support eight creative research and development partnerships across Britain and £33 million to invest in immersive technology products, services and experiences. This will support new uses of virtual reality in areas like video games, interactive art shows and augmented reality experiences in tourism that will capture the world’s attention and double Britain’s share of the global creative immersive content market by 2025.
• £2 million to extend the ‘Get it Right’ campaign to tackle online piracy and educate consumers on the value of copyright and direct them to legitimate websites.
• A new free school based in Islington with places for 1000 students (16+) from across the capital. The London Screen Academy’s curriculum will include UAL Creative Diploma and A-levels and is set to open in Sept 2019.
• Improved access to finance from the British Business Bank for high-growth creative businesses outside of London, with up to £4 million to be invested in a new programme of investment readiness support for creative businesses.
• A new creative industries Trade and Investment Board, comprising industry and government, to replace the current Sector Advisory Group with the ambition of increasing creative industry exports by 50 per cent by 2023 and boosting the number of creative businesses exporting.
• New action to crackdown on copyright infringement. A landmark code of practice brokered by government and industry in 2017 reduced the prominence of illegal sites returned in search results. A series of roundtables between rights holders and platforms will consider the need for and develop a similar approach in relation to the online advertising industry, social media, and online marketplaces.

Commenting on today’s Creative Industries Sector deal Josh Berger, President and Managing Director, Warner Bros. UK and Chair of the British Film Institute said:

Incredible crews, fantastic facilities and the Government’s direct and continuing support for the creative industries – through organisations such as the BFI, and now the sector’s formal inclusion in the industrial strategy – are crucial to a thriving production industry in the UK.

Warner Bros’ experience in the UK has been such a positive one, from developing state of the art facilities and helping train the next generation of creative talent, to the entire business of producing our films here. We have been investing in the UK for many years because for us this country is, alongside Hollywood, the best place in the world to make movies.

John Kampfner, Chief Executive of Creative Industries Federation said:

The Creative Industries Sector Deal is a welcome first step, highlighting the significant contribution our sector makes to UK innovation, productivity, and growth. But government’s commitments cannot end here. We look forward to continued commitment in supporting the next generation of creatives which will ensure our creative industries remain world-leading. To this end, the Federation will be leading on a Creative Careers Campaign to showcase the richness and diversity of creative careers to young people, teachers, parents and carers across the UK. We look forward to working with government to equip the next generation for future work.

Notes to editors

• The Creative Industries Sector Deal will be launched tomorrow morning at The Roundhouse, Camden. Call 0207 211 2210 if you would like to attend.
• This agreement follows the independent Bazalgette review, published in September 2017 led by the current Chair of ITV Sir Peter Bazalgette which outlined key recommendations on how the Creative Industries can underpin Britain’s future economic growth.
• The creative industries Sector Deal – an agreement between the government and industry concluded with the Creative Industries Council – seeks to unlock growth for creative businesses.
• The Cultural Development Fund will be administered by the Arts Council England (ACE).
• Each Sector Deal theme sets out a programme of action:

Place

The Industrial Strategy committed to helping prosperous communities thrive across the country. Creative industries help to deliver this objective because they give places strong identities, as well as driving employment and growth. While research has identified some 47 clusters of creative businesses around Britain almost half of creative businesses are concentrated in the capital and the south east. New Government investment and industry backing for leading creative industry clusters with the potential to compete globally – helping project Global Britain to the world.

Ideas

The deal helps drive innovation by joint public and industry investment in eight partnerships of business and universities, backed by a national research centre, and a commitment to investigate barriers to creative businesses taking up R&D funding. It also pledges joint investment in a strategic innovation challenge set to transform creative content: immersive technologies like Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality.

Business Environment

Creative businesses are nimble, fast growing and globally exporting – but they also face barriers to achieving scale. There are recognised market failures in access to finance, especially outside London. This Sector Deal sets out measures to make it easier for creative businesses to get the finance they need to grow and how industry and government will create a new partnership to realise greater value and impact from public support for exports – as we respond to the challenges and opportunities associated with leaving the EU. It also seeks to safeguard copyright and address the transfer of value from the creative industries.

People

Britain boasts world class skills and talent across the creative industries. This deal sets out how government and industry are taking steps to overcome existing barriers to entry, as well as addressing future skills needs; from improving understanding of the sector among students, parents and teachers via a substantial careers programme, to monitoring uptake of apprenticeships and ensuring that apprenticeship standards for roles identified as important to the Industrial Strategy, are prioritised.