Closed circuit

Glasgow Housing Association is very proud of its achievements in improving homes in the city.

Weather-proofing buildings has been an important part of the association’s programme but perhaps it has gone a little too far?

In a final session at the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland conference last week, Fraser Stewart, director of New Gorbals Housing Association, suggested: ‘If you stand still for long enough [in Glasgow] GHA will render you.’

The deputy leader of Britain’s largest trade union seems to be having something of an identity crisis.

As Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Birmingham Erdington, and party treasurer, and also Mr Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey is as close as they get to Labour. But at the Defend Council Housing conference last week he said Labour had continued a process which began under the Tories where councils were being ‘written out of being the providers of new accommodation’. Although he later said there was now recognition of their role.

Perhaps forgetting that he was speaking as deputy general secretary of Unite, he said ‘we’ — presumably meaning the Labour Party rather than the super-union — ‘stand for decent homes. What the Conservatives stand for is stately homes’.

Delegates at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Scottish conference in Glasgow last week could have been forgiven for thinking they’d turned up to a musical open mic night.

At a session about Enterprising communities David Herd, head of the social enterprise investment team at Social Investment Scotland, pulled out a guitar and sang a 1970s ditty about a community that does not want to move as their area is regenerated.

Not to be outdone, Craig Sanderson, chief executive of charity Link Group, revealed that he was ‘not a musician, I’m a drummer’ before pulling out two pens and demonstrating his technique on the lectern.

Closed Circuit looks forward to U2 returning the favour with a lecture about the Scottish housing finance at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.

Send your juicy housing gossip to closedcircuit@insidehousing.co.uk