Financed by a special tortoise vehicle
The hack and the tortoise
Social Animal is never averse to a spot of freelance work if it's backed by cold, hard cash. But it seems that's a little mercenary for the world of social housing, which is why I won't be applying for the authorship of Notting Hill Housing Group's 25th anniversary booklet.

The group has decided to pay the lucky writer with a tortoise. Why? You may well ask. It's because the founder of NHHG is well known for owning one of the long-living carapace-dwellers.

She (the tortoise, that is) has become a mother at the age of 60 and several youngsters are looking for good homes.

Round the U-bend
Taunton's public toilets are in tip- top shape thanks to a mystery handyman who roams the town fixing them. This angel of the U bend has mended holes in toilet doors and straightened broken bogroll holders but his identity remains unknown.

The council, while grateful, fears his phantom repairs could be a health and safety risk – so let's hope that if his labour in the loos goes down the pan, he decides to turn his hand to free repairs for housing.

Good clean fun?
Crisis chief executive Shaks Ghosh has taken her drive to publicise homelessness to the ladies of middle England: her bathroom recently appeared in Homes and Gardens magazine.

Winging it
Martin Ward, chief executive of Martlet Homes, reportedly felt "both elated and scared" at the news that he would be piloting the association's entry for the Bognor Birdman competition for human-powered flying devices.

Elated, no doubt, because Martlet's machine will be designed by a firm of civil engineers in Chichester; scared because it will be built by tenants and staff.

Hold the front page
Last week I mentioned the Home Office's bold decision to pump resources into improving the public image of asylum and migration.

It looks like their media attack has started – a few days ago a thrilled press release boasted that an independent report had shown the government's asylum figures to be "broadly reliable". Now, if they can just get Ahmed from Big Brother to be a spokesman …

Named and shamed
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Derwenthorpe "model village" has acquired an unfortunate moniker. The 500-home development near York – which, due to planning problems, won't now be finished until three years later than planned – has been christened "Disasterthorpe" by some disgruntled locals. Still, even that's an improvement on the – frankly, obscure – original, New Osbaldwick.

Don’t fence me in

Gated communities are very popular in the USA and are part of the “new Americanism” much beloved of John “design codes” Prescott. Their reality, however, was brought into sharp relief recently for John Calcutt, chief executive of housebuilder Crest Nicholson. While sojourning in one such Stateside town he decided to do a little exploring – only to stumble across another high fence and a gate that he couldn’t enter. It seemed the estate was designed like an old fortified citadel, with one gated community set within another. What next – drawbridges and moats?

Source

Housing Today