Colliers International director Jonathan Manns has taken solving the capital’s housing problem into his own hands – and at the same time put it into the mitts of thousands of Londoners.
His pamphlet, House Me London, is designed to get people thinking and talking about the housing issue, and Manns has distributed an initial 2,000 copies in Tube stations, libraries, pubs and other public spaces.
They are designed to be eye-catching, and encourage those who find them to pick them up, read them and pass them on – as well as share ideas on social media using the hashtag #HOUSEMELONDON.
Manns was inspired by the BookCrossing project, where books are left “in the wild” for other readers to find, which has seen almost 12m books left in public places around the world. “If there’s one thing we know, it’s that when people come together, they can change things for the better,” he says.
“This shareable pamphlet is intended to bring new people into the conversation using new technology. Its purpose is to inspire fresh action to help tackle the housing challenges that our capital faces.” So get reading, sharing and tweeting – maybe together we’ll crack it?
If you don’t happen on a paper copy, download the PDF here
Only in East London
Diary is as concerned as the next person about the gentrification of East London. The former rookeries, factories and docks are an important part of the city’s cultural heritage – one that is all too often bulldozed over and forgotten.
But when it comes to the area’s traditional culinary delicacy of jellied eels, Diary is rather more on the side of progress than preservation.
No outrage then, on discovering plans for residential redevelopment of an industrial building at Old Ford Road, E3.
Not when the site’s official name, according to our records, is “Former Live Eel Warehouse”.
Bet you don’t get many addresses like that in Kensington, let alone further afield.
They grow up so fast
“When I became a man, I put away childish things” – or so the Bible has it, anyway. But when property apprentices grow up, putting it away takes on a whole new meaning.
In an interview for EG’s new Tomorrow’s Leaders podcast, the co-founder of Apprentice Network, Wale Sanusi, explained how his tastes (and we’ll take them as broadly representative of his cohorts) have matured.
Three years into a surveying apprenticeship himself, Sanusi explained how, in the beginning, he and co-founder, Sammy Kingston, budgeted for “tons of sweets and tons of crisps” for their events.
Not now, though. Oh no. Because “we ate a few Smarties and made a great deal” is what no one in the industry said, ever. So now at their networking shindigs, like thousands before them, tomorrow’s leaders will instead be fuelled by… booze.
As Sanusi puts it: “We’re soon to qualify and so everyone’s looking for that opportunity to shake off that apprentice tag.” Bottoms up.
A five-minute warning
If you want to take a planning dispute to court, it pays to get your paperwork in order early. Learn a lesson from poor John Croke, who says he was thwarted in his bid to file his claim on the last day of a strict six-week period – because the Royal Courts of Justice closed five minutes early.
Croke has now won permission to take his case to the Court of Appeal – apparently there’s no prior authority on what happens if the court isn’t functioning properly. After years of cost-cutting, anyone who has ever queued at an RCJ counter may be surprised to hear that.
You didn’t hear this from us
Now, we couldn’t tell you where this meeting will be taking place, much less what it will be about.
Nevertheless Diary felt a thrill to be invited to view a project so new that the meeting instructions require us to head for “a discreet wooden door with no signage and a small black post box on the inside of the doorway”.
We’ll be sporting our George Smiley glasses for that assignation.
