Amidst the doom and gloom, lo and behold some green shoots.At the weekend, Communities secretary, Hazel Blears, said that the government’s priority was to keep together the construction skills base and to do that finance will be found for large scale public investment.

SB understands Housing minister, Margaret Beckett, who has more clout than Caroline Flint is solidly behind Blears. Prime beneficiaries will be social and affordable housing.
At time of going to press Gordon Brown is set to make a speech confirming the view.
Given the government’s 80% carbon reduction target and drive for eco towns there is some good news for sustainable building.

At a London property event a senior policy adviser at the Greater London Authority was talking about a £5bn pot of investment set to go into housing, but pointing out the standards of publicly funded housing were higher than private sector buildings.
The talk was of the public sector taking the lead, and the private sector piggy backing, or following along.

Jackie Sadek, head of regeneration at CB Richard Ellis and chair of BURA, said life will be different now. Although some people mentioned the dreaded R word (recession), Sadek, an obvious glass full sort of person, evangelically pronounced the P word (partnership). She talked of an end to slash and burn, of developers making a mint and moving on, but of more transparency and designs for the long term. She predicted new financial models, with public sector shouldering the land buying risks, with the private sector undertaking the build.

And although she said there were some in the property sector predicting doom and gloom, there were others who said the current circumstances who saw it as an opportunity of a lifetime.And finally she pointed out an end to the retail boxes reliant on cars and an era of more sustainably built units integrated into the local communities.
So for building sustainably, at least there ARE some reasons to be cheerful.