New year, new gossip
Bling bling
I wonder what Derek Joseph, managing director of Hacas Chapman Hendy, got for Christmas. After all, what do you get the man who has everything? Last year's takeover of HACAS by the Tribal Group – a deal that proved more than a trifle lucrative for Joseph – seems to have given him a new lease of life. Not only has he waved goodbye to the 'burbs in favour of a posh central London pad, he now drives a Porsche Boxster.

Hair today …
Social Animal spent the last few days of December asking the great and good of housing for their New Year's resolutions. From the predictable to the unprintable, they bared their souls.

Guess whose resolution this is: "In 2004, I want to be better groomed. I noticed a hair out of place one day in 2003 and it can't be allowed to happen again."

Nobody mention Arsenal
Let's hope that economist Kate Barker got some nice Christmas presents, as her football team – Tottenham Hotspur – seemed hell-bent on gift-wrapping goals to the opposition at every opportunity.

Spurs have now dropped into the relegation zone of the Premiership after a string of defeats.

Perhaps they should take a leaf out of Barker's book and plan some building for the future …

The numbers game
Perhaps it's the time of year, perhaps it's the recent decision to make a bundle of development staff redundant; whatever the motive, the troubled Peabody Trust has resolved to set the record straight about exactly how many homes it builds – and put an end to a stream of irate letters to HT.

For the past two years the London landlord has topped the list of affordable housing developers with 3885 homes built annually, causing howls of protest from other developing landlords.

Social Animal can now reveal that the trust built 161 homes in 2001/2 and 197 in 2002/3, and it plans to build 367 across 2003/4 and 2004/5. This means Peabody can no longer claim the top spot but congrats to the Home Group, which is the new top dog with 3539 homes in 2002/3.

The cold war finally ends
Liverpool council was overjoyed this week when peace broke out in the long-running battle over its repairs and maintenance service. The city has been trapped in a dysfunctional relationship with contractor Interserve for the past two years.

Jobs have been slashed, strikes have been threatened and all the while radiators have remained cold, filling the local press with stories of elderly residents shivering their way through the festive season.

On Monday the contract was finally handed to a rival company, leaving Interserve out in the cold.

I’ll huff and I’ll puff

As the property price collapse fails to materialise, one family has come up with an innovative way of beating the market. Kester and Zinnia Wilkinson of Herefordshire have built what is thought to be the first ever two-storey straw house. At a total cost of just £170,000 for construction materials and a one-and-a-half acre building plot, they shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping the big bad wolf from the door.

Source

Housing Today