Bringing fresh meaning to the word 'newshound'
'Developers are innocent' shock
Who's to blame for the UK's acute shortage of affordable homes? Anyone but our friends the developers, it would seem.

Giving evidence at the urban affairs subcommittee's inquiry into affordable homes, representatives from Berkeley and Fairview Homes passed the buck on to the government, local authorities, landowners and nimbys everywhere. An incredulous Andrew Bennett MP asked if people were expected to believe that all developers were "good guys". After a noticeably long pause, Fairview stepped in with a diplomatic reply: "Well, naturally, there are things that could be improved." Such modesty.

DKNY, D&G, FCUK … ODPM?
For those readers confused by the tongue-twisting acronym for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, help is at hand. I can reveal that the correct pronunciation comes from across the Chanel, er, Channel. It's "eau de PM", folks. You just splash it on and instantly you smell like a 1970s rock band. Mmm!

Brunch is for wimping out
It seems that the reshuffle has claimed more victims. A brunch to mark the beginning of the Housing Forum's national housing week was cancelled after no ministers could be found to attend. In addition, the findings of the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Institute for Public Policy Research's long-awaited study into giving tenants a share in their home in return for good behaviour was delayed because the minister who was pencilled in to launch it was, er, Stephen Byers.

Join the Mammal Society
New housing minister Jeff Rooker will have some tricky problems to deal with, but none so delicate as the badger-slaughter imbroglio he faced as food safety minister.

It appears that the government has been busy culling thousands of badgers in an attempt to halt tuberculosis in cattle.

Among the 20 organisations that objected were, of course, a whole sett of badger groups and something called the Mammal Society. Are we all members, or do you have to qualify?

It'll be stocks and dungeons next
After last week's report that councils are to be given powers to seal off alleys plagued by ne'er-do-wells, a passing historian has commented that, back in the 15th century, it was common practice to string chains at ankle height across streets to trip fleeing wrongdoers. How far we've come.

61% of surveys are useless

If another housing survey lands on my desk, I’ll scream. Just three weeks ago, I suggested that the next survey might “reveal” that most homeowners feel that roofs are important. Since then, there’s been a torrent of them. Estate agent Halifax has revealed that overall property prices in towns that do not get much rainfall have risen twice as much as those in more rain-soaked areas; the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment has discovered that 84% of us think a council tower block is the place they’d least like to live in, with the humble bungalow coming in as most popular; and Norwich Union Insurance tells us that selfish car parking is the issue most likely to cause a dispute between neighbours, with only a jealous 1% complaining about the noise of energetic lovemaking from those next door.

Source

Housing Today