A gossip column that's both public and private
May the fourth be with you
Readers will be delighted to hear that Social Animal has managed to get to the bottom of the vexing question of whether housing associations are public or private bodies. It was explained to me like this: when the time comes around for the government to loosen the purse strings, registered social landlords are there as good public sector servants; yet when the regulators come calling the same RSLs become very private bodies that resent public sector interference.

My source had a name for this rather nebulous state in which associations often find it convenient to place themselves – the fourth dimension.

I'm still a one-woman animal
And the fourth dimension may well be where my information came from on last week's tip that there was only one woman for the top job at Notting Hill Housing Group. Kate Davies? Nah! Not a chance – I still say it'll be Ingrid Reynolds.

My apologies to Dame Davies – and for those punters planning a flutter this weekend, I fancy Arsenal for the title …

Promises, promises
Moving from Servite to Notting Hill will be a big change for new chief executive Kate Davies, but at least her route into work in the morning will stay the same – the two offices are just down the road from each other.

There's no chance of any of Servite's staff getting "lost" on the way into work , though – Davies has had to promise Servite chairman Marta Phillips that she won't poach any of her old team.

They'll have the shirt off your back
MHS Homes' decision to raise its profile by sponsoring local football team Gillingham FC appears to be working already – and reaching a market much further afield than the association dared to dream.

Following Housing Today's story on the deal last week, chief executive John Sands says he had a request for a free shirt from a Gills fan working in housing in far away Rugby. The fan's cheek has paid off, though; Sands says he'll be dispatching one soon.

Nice to be at Seaside?
John Prescott's Damascene conversion to the cause of urban design codes is still making waves. His visit to the US town of Seaside last October, coincidentally the setting for film satire the Truman Show, caused him to embrace the controversial philosophy, where the "design DNA" of a development is set out in advance. But, speaking at a coding conference last Friday, English Partnerships' strategy director Trevor Beattie claimed Seaside was just a wealthy ghetto, lacking the mix of classes and income groups a sustainable community needs: "It shows how truly horrific middle-class America can be," he said. And that's from one of Prezza's mates.

You can’t trust anyone

The Hutton Report, the Gershon review, the end-to-end review of the Housing Corporation. The last one may not trip off the tongue quite as readily as the others, yet it resembles them in many ways – not least the fact that its contents have been protected about as well as the contents of David Beckham’s text message outbox. The ODPM has now decided that it is time to plug the leaks, so instead of drafts of the report being circulated by email, members of the review team have been hauled in for one-to-one briefings with the ODPM.

Source

Housing Today