Wishing to be gone fishing, but always hard at it

Not much of a getaway

You’d think booking a beach holiday in Jamaica would be one way of guaranteeing an escape from work worries, but not so for a staff member of Knightstone Housing Association. As she lay sunning herself on a beach, she couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between two drug dealers about business opportunities at a crack den located in a cafe in St Paul’s in Bristol – the very area where Knightstone had been unable to let several houses because of residents’ fear of the cafe’s clientele.

Well, they say life’s a beach – but on the plus side, Social Animal is happy to report that the crack house has now been closed down and will be demolished.

Peer pressure

Rumour has it that deputy prime minister John Prescott is to be shipped off to the House of Lords after the general election. Prescott could join his housing colleague Jeff Rooker on the peers’ benches.

So is the peerage a reward for all his hard work as Tony’s right hand man – or a good way to shut up a politician who has had a few recent bust-ups with election mastermind Alan Milburn? Whichever it is, Prezza would, of course, be sorely missed.

Remember December

The 2010 decent homes deadline must be engraved into the wall of every housing office by now, but housing minister Keith Hill has finally told parliament that the doomsday will fall in December 2010. No great surprises there then – the big day will be put off for as long as possible. And since ODPM announcements usually turn up a few months late, maybe the sector will get the same leeway. So that will be a March deadline then …

Natural election

A Labour win in the election could result in regulators becoming an endangered species. Rumour has it that the myriad of public sector regulators will be whittled down to a select four if Labour is re-elected. Sound familiar? It’s Labour deftly nabbing policies from the Tories once more. Watch this space to see if the Housing Corporation is destined to be joined on the great bonfire of the regulators by the Audit Commission.

Flag it up

Just one of the many “successes” the ODPM has been trumpeting as part of its celebrations of two years since the Communities Plan was set up is an impressive-sounding increase of 38% in the number of local authorities that’ve won a Green Flag Award for public spaces. But a call to the Civic Trust, which runs the project, reveals this to be another example of over-optimistic government number crunchers: in fact only 21% were awarded in 2003/4. And no amount of positive thinking can change the fact that the target in the plan was for every local authority to have an award by 2005.

Sea change

While environmentalists step up pressure on the government to tackle the problem of carbon emissions, the consultation on the Yorkshire and Humber regional spatial strategy has prompted an interesting suggestion as to how the region could capitalise on global climate change.

One respondent said local planners should use global warming as an opportunity to “promote coastal tourism”.
The mind boggles. Perhaps the respondent envisages a time when rising sea levels will result in the creation of a Leeds-on-Sea or a York beach.

Source

Housing Today