Diary: The HoCoLoGo hokey-cokey

Goodbye Department for Communities and Local Government, hello Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Is this a change which, as it has been presented, will put meat on the bones of the government’s commitment to the housing agenda? Or will it result solely in a windfall for Whitehall-based stationery and signage suppliers? What is of immediate concern to Diary is how to refer to the department. Its full name is clearly too long. MHCLG is about as likely to stick as the latest Incumbent in the revolving role of housing minister. MuhClug was an early favourite. But it seems we have settled, with unusual speed, on HoCoLoGo, thanks in part to brand-conscious secretary of state Sajid Javid’s use of it as a Twitter hashtag. Cue lots of music-themed jokes about “goin’ loco”, “doing the HoCoLoGo-motion”, and even (and this is a stretch) “The HoCo, the HoCoLoGo, where music and passion are always in fashion”. But, for Diary, there’s only one song it brings to mind– an old party favourite. You put your housing minister in, you take your housing minister out, in, out, in, out, you shake them all about… The car’s still the star As one of the original “Starchitects”, Sir Norman Foster can expect his views to carry weight. Speaking to the RIBA last year, Sir Norman outlined his vision for the future of “the sustainable city”, which he said was one of “strong civic leadership, pedestrianisation and people over cars”. Interesting, then, to see Meyer Bergman’s recent planning application for a Foster + Partners-designed scheme at Queensway Parade, W2 – essentially a second phase of MB’s Whiteleys scheme. The site has excellent public transport links, being a stone’s throw from Bayswater Tube station. And so, for its 82 private homes it has… 86 basement car parking spaces, with an automated car stacker system.  The name game The mega-merger between Hammerson and intu late last year raised an intriguing question: what it meant for the name of Hammerson’s joint venture with Westfield in Croydon. With intu now in the mix, the stage was set for a potential clash of rival headline brands. Hammerson, of course, has traditionally adopted a more low-profile approach to getting its name out there, albeit its new logo in 2016 was geared towards raising its profile. There remains some work to do in that department, though, judging by a GLA press release announcing London mayor Sadiq Khan’s approval for the scheme. It referred to the redevelopment of the Whitgift shopping centre by the Croydon Partnership as “a joint venture between Westfield and Croydon Council” – with no mention of Hammerson’s role. The only clue to its involvement is a quote near the bottom from chief investment officer, Peter Cole – to the likely bafflement of anyone hearing about all this for the first time. In the bleak mid-January It’s the middle of January, the Christmas decorations are all packed away, the weather’s miserable, and even the short-lived novelty of returning to work has worn off. Can Diary rely on the PR missives in its inbox to lift the deepening gloom? In short, no. “REVEALED: The Top 20 ‘Repossession’ Hotspots” screams one subject title. (Middlesbrough, Oldham and Thurrock are the most at-risk areas, in case you summoned the will to wonder.) The price of splitting up is spiralling, according to another, with the average cost of divorce or separation said to be more than £14,500 per couple – a total annual bill of £1.7bn in the UK, with £310m of that spent on finding new homes. But worse is surely to come. Once the weekend is out of the way, we hit 15 January – 2018’s “Blue Monday”, the official, rubber-stamped most depressing day of the year. Can we just leave our out-of-office on until Tuesday? Apple bears fruit  for Crown Estate An interesting nugget from our friends at Farmers Weekly. At a recent gathering of agricultural tenants, Ken Jones, the Crown Estate’s director of rural and coastal, revealed that it earns more in rent from the Apple store on Regent Street than the net combined income from all its farmland. Put another way, a single shop brings in more money than 100,000ha of the finest arable land in the country. To send feedback, e-mail jess.harrold@egi.co.uk or tweet @jessharrold or @estatesgazette