Edging closer to the panda enclosure
Baptism of ire
Poor old Wendy Jarvis. If she had any doubts about the pressure-cooker atmosphere she was entering when she became head of local authority housing at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, they have surely now been dispelled.

There she was at CityWest's conference on arm's-length management organisations, standing happily at the podium and ready for a nice chat with the residents, officers and tenants who had come along. And what did the mean old bullies do? Heckled her, that's what.

Tenants of Camden and Hammersmith & Fulham councils wanted to know why the authorities couldn't retain control of their stock. And they wanted to know immediately. Jarvis' protestations of innocence were useless. Any ODPM staffer is fair game, these days, it seems …

Housing when it sizzles
The social housing sector has always been friendly but if Kelvin MacDonald, director of policy and research at the Royal Town Planning Institute, is to be believed, things could be getting very up close and personal. "English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation have got into bed with each other," he told delegates at an affordable housing conference on 30 April. "Or certainly their chairs have."

Have Margaret Ford and Baroness Dean been up to something they shouldn't? Or was it MacDonald who made the slip?

Giving something back
Paul Abey, on the other hand, is decidedly less impressed with the housing world. Speaking at the same conference, the world-weary assistant director (investment) for the Housing Corporation South region, declared: "I don't have all the answers. If I did, I wouldn't be working for the Housing Corporation. I would be earning a lot of money as a consultant."

Panda coda
The World Wildlife Fund is a robust organisation – it trounced those chair-tossing showmen from the World Wrestling Federation in a court case over the use of the letters WWF – but its latest plan is a bit OTT.

At the Building More Housing conference last Thursday, Paul King, who is leading the WWF's campaign for sustainable housing, was billed as demanding that "1 million substantial homes" be built.

The car's no star
Mike Maunder, the Audit Commission's lead inspector for market renewal pathfinders, was left red-faced last week when he missed his slot at a Northern Housing Consortium conference on inspection. The reason? His car broke down and he had to wait for tow truck to take him to Leeds.

Poor old Maunder ended up missing the entire morning, and had to redeem himself in the afternoon. Fortunately, the attendees were in a forgiving mood.

Watch the birdie

And now for a touching springtime nature story of the sort to quicken the pulses of ornithologists everywhere. Work at a development for AvonQuest homes in Avenham, Preston, has stopped after a thrush was discovered nesting on the scaffolding. What’s more, it was raising a family. The RSPCA was called in and decreed that the nest could not be disturbed for 14 days. Still, at least the tenants were kept entertained as the workers tried to work out what to do.

Source

Housing Today