Comment

John: Alistair reminds me it’s your big “Urban Summit” thingy in Birmingham next week. I might not be able to make it myself but it’s vital we show how committed we are to revitalising towns and cities.

I know your old pal Lord Rogers and some of his mates on the Urban Taskforce have been stirring things up a bit lately and suggesting that progress has not been as fast as they wanted. But I think we’ve got a lot to be proud of since their report three years ago. When I wander round places like Birmingham and Manchester I can see for myself just how “buzzy” they’ve become. Mind you, I can see why we might get accused of creating yuppie ghettos – six-foot-high walls and CCTV cameras don’t say “sustainable mixed community”. Someone suggested the other day that we’re really only going to crack that if we put more social housing in the better-off areas – but Gordon won’t cough up any more money.

Anyway, I think you should point out how we’ve managed to surpass our targets on brownfield housebuilding and promoted better design and town-centre development. I don’t know the ins and outs, but councils are now allowed to sell land for less than the best price if it can be used for social benefits, aren’t they? That makes sense. And thank goodness we’re doing something about restoring gap funding – one of my constituents has driven me mad with complaints since the EU banned it. He says that cutting off the grants that make up the difference between the cost and value of new homes for rent was scaring developers out of run-down areas. He thinks that it should also be made available for homes for sale as well.

With just a week to go before the Urban Summit, Housing Today stumbles across a top-level email …

Mind you, I guess we don’t need too many new policies. Perhaps we could just join them up a bit better. I suppose I should be banging a few more heads together – it’s crazy when we’ve got mandarins in the DTI trying to get people to set up small businesses while yours are refurbishing houses nowhere near. Mind you, you’ve got enough on your plate. When I went to see one estate recently I was told that it had to apply for about 10 different funding streams. Alistair told me about our review to try and bring them under one umbrella, but wasn’t the single regeneration budget meant to do that?

I must say, I don’t envy you – getting those housing folk in the same room as regeneration people, health experts, businesses and councils and trying to come up with schemes that work on all fronts. Very difficult, I imagine. No bright ideas either, I’m afraid, on tackling the North-South divide. Somebody suggested we invest in airports in the North, or spend all the money for regeneration filling those empty Northern terraces and plough all the money for new homes into the South. Not exactly a votewinner, is it?