Slippery things

House building statistics are slippery things in the hands of politicians. Labour and Tory politicians are wont to rubbish each other?s housing records, with each scrambling to spin the stats in a way which proves their party is best.

Up to this trick recently was everyone?s favourite currently-serving MP for Croydon Central, Gavin Barwell (You know, the housing minister. He looks like Charlie Brown rendered in 3D).

Responding to the news this week that 189,650 homes were added to the housing stock this year. Casting around for a favourable comparison, he triumphantly tweeted that this was higher than the ?mean under Labour? of 171,000. Unfortunately, Mr Barwell declined to take his SAT maths skills to the Conservative record. Had he done so, he?d have realised the mean under the Tories is a paltry 148,993. Get a new stats guy, Gav.

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Japanese Knotweed. Grrr. Annoying isn?t it. Those bloody plants, which stalk the nightmares of development teams, burrowing into foundations and impossible to remove. Well the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has a left-field solution. Burning, chopping and digging out may all be ineffective, but have you ever thought of eating it?

RICS tracked down a restaurant which has turned the weed into a frankly disgusting ice cream, if its poisonous looking colour is anything to go by. Closed Circuit will pass, but it recommends the solution to any desperate development teams out there.

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Being pretty image conscious social landlords often face a bit of a challenge when they expand their market sale arms and target higher-earning clientele.

Keen not to be thrown in a basket with the big builders flogging investment pads to Malaysian hedge funds, the PR is carefully managed to make sure the luxury homes don?t sound too luxury.

Affinity Sutton was fighting this battle at the Homes Conference this week, when development director Kerry?Kyriacou revealed one of their units sold for ?5.8m.

?Bizarrely that apartment that went for ?5.8m did not go to a Russian oligarch or a rich Chinese investor, it went to a local family,? he explained. Closed Circuit isn?t sure who this local family were, but it assumes the Windsors of SW1.?