Social animal

Writer’s block

Columnist Julie Burchill is at the centre of a row with her “selfish” neighbours in Hove over plans to knock down four family homes to make way for a block of 78 flats. The owners of the earmarked homes, including Burchill, have all agreed to the demolition and have accepted an undisclosed seven-figure sum.

But several homeowners nearby have complained about the development and have written to the council to object.

Angered by their actions, Burchill decided to take a rather unusual course of action. She has challenged them to take a lie detector test, saying that anyone would accept the money if developers approached them to buy their property.

Of course, her only concern is that poor young people in Brighton manage to clamber onto that first rung of the property ladder …

Rank outsiders

Delegates at last Thursday’s Northern Housing Consortium development conference were impressed by the efficiency of the event at York racecourse. The attention to detail even extended to ensuring that the lifts to the main venue only stopped at the right floor. The idea was that no one could get lost – if only it were that simple.

Word has reached me that a few determined souls managed to confound the system and ended up wandering the racecourse in search of the session. At any rate, that’s their story …

Is that like the World Series?

Speaking at the same event, the Housing Corporation’s Northern supremo John Carleton obviously felt the launch of the regulator’s consultation paper on paying grant to developers – “non-RSLs” in Corpy-speak – was an opportunity to make a grand gesture. Accordingly, he pronounced that the corporation’s aim was “for our investment programme to be the most respected affordable housing programme in the world”.

Association chief executives who are opposed to grant being paid to housebuilders might be tempted to point out that the corporation is going about achieving this lofty goal in a strange way.

Saving the second-best till last

It may have taken a bit longer than the others to get off the blocks, but Hull’s housing market renewal pathfinder seems to be heading in the right direction at last. Sources at Kingston upon Hull council told me that when the ODPM finally got a look at the pathfinder strategy last month, the mandarins declared it was the second best out of the whole lot.

But one question remains: which of the nine pathfinders submitted the best plan? The ODPM, apparently overcome with shyness, refuses to say. Care to hazard a guess?