Smooth criminal

Staff at Bath & North East Somerset Council got the chance to live out their tabloid dreams with an orgy of puns this month after a Bath resident pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a noise abatement notice.

‘Noise action success in “Thriller” court case’ led a council press release after Andrew Smith admitted to rapping along to Michael Jackson tunes at all times of day and night.

‘Michael Jackson might be one of the greatest musicians of the modern era, but there is no excuse to be ‘Bad’ to your neighbours and ignore requests to stop noise nuisance,’ added environmental health officer John Harvey. See what he did there?

At the beginning of the month Closed Circuit reported that footballer Gary Neville had been refused planning permission for what opponents dubbed the ‘tellytubbies home’.

Now another celebrity, Blackadder actor Rowan Atkinson, has reportedly upset the locals with plans to replace his existing Oxfordshire home with a futuristic style house complete with transparent walkway.

The Telegraph reported a neighbouring farmer declaring, ‘The house will look like an ugly space age petrol station’. Sounds like the thesp may need to come up with a very cunning plan.

The inefficiency of London’s Tube network threw up all sorts of challenges for participants in Inside Housing’s efficiency roundtable, held at the Park Lane Hilton hotel last week.

Elaine Elkington, strategic director of housing and constituencies at Birmingham Council, and Hugh Broadbent, chief executive of First Choice Homes Oldham, travelled across the country to attend the lunchtime event only to discover the underground system in disarray when they reached London.

John McPeake, director of design and property services for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, meanwhile, got stuck at Belfast Airport, missing the chaos on the underground. Needless to say, when discussing ways to make the housing sector more efficient, nobody in the group used Transport for London as an example of best practice.