The Housing Corporation has appointed five new members.
The appointments will result in John Walker, acting chief executive of regeneration agency English Partnerships, and Dr Norman Perry, chief executive of the Housing Corporation, taking up places on the boards of each other's organisations.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister announced the plans to increase cooperation between the two non-departmental government bodies at the Urban Summit in October. Neither will be remunerated for the additional responsibilities.

English Partnerships has agreed to sell 125 sites across southern England that it feels are ripe for affordable housing to the corporation at a discount (HT 3 October, page 16).

The other new Housing Corporation board members are: Sheila Drew Smith, chair of Tower Hamlets Housing Action Trust in east London; Julie Fawcett, chair of Stockwell Park Community Trust in south-east London; Shaukat Moledina, non-executive chairman of healthcare consultant Amocura Holdings and Sandi O'Neill, a consultant for the not-for-profit sector. They took up their roles on Sunday.

The appointments give the board its full complement of 15 members and come after the retirement of former board members Sylvia Denman CBE, John Foster OBE and Peter Williams in September.