Out of Whitehall

the summer recess has not been marked by silence in the corridors of power. Directly after his return from holiday, Tony Blair gave a keynote speech on social exclusion and a week later Hilary Armstrong, the minister with responsibility for this portfolio, launched an action plan to tackle it.

Blair’s speech, presented earlier this month at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, failed to mention housing, something that Adam Sampson, director of charity Shelter, highlighted as a failing. “Housing inequality is a key driver of social exclusion, perpetuating the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next,” said Sampson.

Social issues have been occupying minds in the DCLG too, with communities secretary Ruth Kelly launching the commission on integration and cohesion last month. The body aims to empower communities to improve cohesion and tackle extremism. Its 13 members include Steve Douglas, deputy chief executive of the Housing Corporation, and Ed Cox, chair of the Urban Forum, the umbrella body for community groups in urban regeneration.

Last month, the DCLG also announced that Judith Armitt, chief executive of Medway council, has been appointed chief executive of the Thames Gateway. In the conference hall at last year’s Thames Gateway Forum, Armitt gave a bravura performance about setting up Medway Renaissance, the council-led delivery unit with the thorny task of making Rochester Riverside happen.

Armitt’s start date has not yet been confirmed but the DCLG anticipates that it will be some time in October. The department defines Armitt’s job as “driving the delivery of the Thames Gateway programme and the implementation of the strategic framework”. Several council leaders in the Gateway, including those of Southend and Basildon, have already urged Armitt to focus first on infrastructure.

Also issued over the summer were the government’s annual statistics on reuse of brownfield land. The statistics revealed that 63,500 ha of previously developed land was available for development last year. Almost 28,000 ha of this, 44%, was suitable for housing, enough to build just over 980,000 homes, 400,000 of them in the South-east.

Baroness Kay Andrews, the House of Lords planning minister, said: “There is a real need to build more homes if we are to meet the housing needs of future generations and these statistics show that many of these could go on reused sites.”

But behind the headline figures, the statistics show the complexities of delivery. Of the land earmarked as suitable for housing, almost 15,000 ha is still in use and almost 19,000 ha requires treatment before building work starts. Only 34% of the land is planned for housing, with the remainder set for other uses or not yet having a use planned. And the land is in various hands, with 56% of it privately owned.