From the terrace of the House of Lords, our man Mike De’Ath launched the Housing Forum’s report into how to better provide low cost housing.As he talked about it I was thinking ‘what’s more important than this?’. A society that has some making huge capital gains on rising house prices whilst others can’t afford to either rent or buy is a divided society heading for disruption.
http://housingforum.org.uk/knowledge/publications/making-place-low-cost-housing-report
The night before I stayed locally and bumped into some folk from the Berkeley Group in a bar on the Thames, beneath some unashamedly unaffordable housing. I knew Berkeley were ahead on customer service, but nice of them to go to the length of filling the pub in their development with their own friendly staff. The characters of the people matched their brand differentiation too.The train home from Brighton after the CIH conference after talking about institutional private rent, a part of the answer.This my view of London as I arrive. It’s the capital of the world now, or so I’m told. About 80% of the new jobs created in the UK in the last few years were in the south east, but I’m sure a good proportion of the other 20% is people servicing the London economy from the rest of the UK, like we do. If a twin track housing market with the majority priced out is divisive, a twin track economy is equally so.
Everything changes in the week before Christmas: travel is less predictable, work is what happens between nights out, there’s loads to finish and there are things to reflect on. Santa was in the departure lounge when my plane was on time… …nobody quite so interesting when it was delayed, in Bristol.
We won a couple of cracking jobs in the last week, setting us up nicely for next year, and adding an extra level of excitement to the Christmas party. We need to learn from those we know who are doing things well around us, like Argent at Kings Cross. They work hard to keep the place busy and bustling whilst construction is going on all around. A few of the buildings are really attractive too. This has different proportions to most office structures you see, and attractive cast columns.
It’s all really busy, but if you want to spin your talents into a successful business career you could do worse than look to Jackie Stewart for inspiration. This is his Tyrell 003, in which he won the Formula One World Championship 40 years ago this year.Then Alison, a few days past her due date, came round and we talked about far more important events all together.
Appraisals are a colossal waste of everyone’s time, says Forbes magazine. Everyone gets one in HTA, except some of the board. I don’t think they should miss out, so I did one.
It’s not quite 360, but why would you put yourself through that?
My friend the 225 who I see a couple of times a week these days.
The team (Karen, Tom, Jamie, Pete & Richard) making a dodgy snowmen tableaux for a competition we didn’t win.
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