Drunk as a skunk on a very small hospitality budget
Now they're calling him Two Gins
The ODPM unfairly gained a reputation as the party-hearty department last week after the Liberal Democrats reported that John Prescott and chums spent £1.8m on hospitality last year.

Truth was though – and this doesn't fill one with confidence about the Lib Dem bean-counters – Prescott's puritans only spent £1869 on fun. Office of the Decimal Point Missing rather than Office of the Drunken Party Ministers, it would seem.

Charge of the heavy brigade
When government officials dreamed up optional planning charges – intended to provide developers with a quick and easy alternative to complicated section 106 planning gain deals – they were clear about how they would not work.

If introduced, the mandarins said, councils would not be allowed to scare off developers with prohibitively high charges. Although the future for the optional charges looks far from certain, it seems the government's message has yet to sink in.

Social Animal recently overheard the mayor of a Hertfordshire district council extolling the virtues of planning charges. "We'll have the highest charges in the country," he said triumphantly. "No one will want to develop anything at all."

Some assembly required, pet
A couple of days in Newcastle could soon join Harrogate as a fixture on the housing calendar, if the city's new Liberal Democrat council gets its way. Regeneration supremo Greg Stone wants Newcastle to have its own annual housing expo.

Apparently, he's been so impressed by the green homes that have gone on show in Scandinavian exhibitions that he wants others in the North-east to see them too. Could this lead to regeneration by Ikea? You heard it here first …

Could it get any verse?
York Housing Association's 40th anniversary celebrations have become an unlikely muse for one of its employees. To honour the occasion John Gilham, the association's development and property director, has penned a three-page free-verse tribute to YHA and its values. Space constraints prevent us from reproducing the work but, rest assured, it's enough to bring tears to the eyes. Happy birthday, anyway.

Getting out more
We've heard of executive types submitting to brief periods of homelessness for the frankly bizarre reason that it builds self-sufficiency and mental toughness.

But in London, weekend homelessness breaks are being marketed as a "spiritual" alternative to a yoga retreat. According to the Peacemaker Circle International Community, a bout of homelessness is good for the soul. Yeah, right. And a bout of whooping cough is good for the lungs, I suppose.

I’m just nipping out for a Pinot

Staff at the Square Pig wine bar in Holborn, central London, were surprised to see employees of the National Housing Federation troop in slightly earlier than usual last Monday. The bar’s newest regulars turned up at work to find they had no running water – cue multiple trips over the road to fill kettles and use the toilets. That’s their excuse anyway. Unfortunately for the Fed staff, the water supply was back by lunchtime.

Source

Housing Today