Putting the cat among the turkeys
Pick a car, any car …
Taking the best-value message well and truly to heart, the canny folk at the Home Group have managed to save themselves a couple of quid by negotiating a company-car deal with French firm Citroën.

It's all good as far as the tenants are concerned because it means more money to be spent on services, but it is posing a few problems for Home Group staff trying to find their own particular vehicle in the sea of Xantias and Xsaras in the office car park.

Twice as scary
Tom Manion – boss at Gold Standard association Irwell Valley – was so taken with the performance put in by the "turn" at a recent event to raise tenant awareness about antisocial behaviour, the self-titled Scary Guy, that he has decided to have a go himself.

He plans to don cape and mask and join his new scary friend in a nationwide tour promoting the "scary" message. The dynamic duo will be called – wait for it – the Scary Guys. Scary prospect.

Sing-along a Sefton Park
Liverpool's bid to become the 2008 European City of Culture seems to have caught the imagination of the housing sector there. I am grateful to the residents of the Sefton Park Estate for sending me a CD they've brought out called High Life. It contains 20 corking little ditties in celebration of the streets in the sky, and it's just in time for Christmas – the ideal stockingfiller.

Meanwhile, Liverpool Housing Action Trust is continuing its run of artistic projects. The latest initiative is to have novelist Will Self holed up in the 20th storey of the condemned Linosa Court building, churning out short stories.

The great city on the Mersey has come a long way since little Donny Osmond.

Millionaires' essential maintenance
Millionaire homebuyers are notorious for their delicate sensibilities – which is why the developer behind one of Scotland's most expensive property schemes is going all out to ensure its planned estate of turreted, seven-bedroom mansions has the perfect "approach".

Fearing that clients might not be overly keen to part with £750,000 for houses in Braehead, West Lothian, because they are in close proximity to a council estate, private developer Knightsbridge Homes is offering to pay for a face-lift of the aesthetically displeasing council properties. Unsurprisingly, residents have been rather keen on the offer – one is getting the exterior of his house recast and another is having his carport overhauled into something more pleasing to the eye.

I'm sure the Scottish Executive is keeping a keen watch on proceedings, with a view to encouraging other parts of the private sector to help meet the Scottish decent homes target.

Coronation Street

The Prince of Wales isn’t having it all his own way down in the idyllic but kitsch village of Poundbury, which he himself helped to create. Dorset councillors given the task of choosing street names narrowly consented to the Prince’s rather sober choice of Coburg Square in one case. However, they subsequently vowed to christen the next stretch of pavement on their list after the former Princess of Wales. Are we to assume that particular option wasn’t on the Prince’s list?

Source

Housing Today