Body building without steroids

This issue of Regenerate deals with a few of the possible talking points of the conference, such as how housing associations can operate in the private market and that thorny matter of managing mixed-tenure estates.

But the main topic of conversation outside the conference halls is likely to be the prospect, proposed just over a month ago, of a merger between the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships to form a new housing and regeneration super-agency.

The merger is the latest idea to come out of a government that has been very big on ideas. There is, though, a certain irony to the fact that, having created a whole new generation of quangos to deliver its sustainable communities plan, the government now intends to rationalise. Everyone must hope that the merger proves to be one of this administration's better ideas.

Some government ideas manage to astonish everyone by succeeding. For this issue we asked industry experts to name the government initiatives, both Labour and Conservative, that they believed have been the most successful, and several recent innovations are already taking their place alongside the creations of the Thatcher era and earlier.

English Partnerships is among the 10 successful initiatives featured, meriting our experts' praise for its recent renaissance as a go-getter. Combine EP's dynamism with the financial clout of the Housing Corporation and the end result should be a pretty influential superpower. The single body could assemble and buy land and work with all stakeholder groups to create sustainable communities where tenure, accessibility, design, green issues and the soft issues of community are all brought together. There is nervousness about the detail of the deal even within the government, but this is one initiative that could turn out to be a landmark for housing and regeneration… if all involved are prepared to go boldly.