In my area (Social Housing) it's disheartening to see environmental issues have fallen off the agenda. It's all about have we got sufficient ethnic diversity living in our properties, and for many social landlords, how can we turn a quick buck on all this new stock the builders are desperate to sell off cheap.

Unfortunately, the quick builds are generally done to a much lower specification than should be the case (my one problem with Vince Cable's normally well considered arguments), so we can expect a future full of further environmental and (anti) social problems in much the same manner as the ones caused by the 1960s tenements.

As far as the Liverpool council goes, they're actually not bad at talking to people on a grass roots basis (that regen talk would have been fairly interesting), but I do wonder how much of that it is just paying lip service - from what I hear it's quite an autocratic place!

Well done Adrian. I'm gutted I missed the event. Was it billed as a launch type thing or just a run if the mill event?

It just feels like a second rate 'theme' without the passion or expertise to properly exploit the opportunity to make a real difference.

I may have been expecting / wanting too much.

Alex: I was interested in the regen talk, but had already taken more time out of the day than I could really afford. I might see if I can find any other reports or notes on the meeting from anyone else.

I'm also keen to find out more about what you're doing in social housing. Working out how we make sustainability viable for the social housing property is a key challenge, but also a huge opportunity.

David: I think it was just a general Environment Network meeting rather than anything tied to the Year of the Environment, but obviously the Year of the Environment received plenty of mentions.

I am wondering how long we should wait for the council to do anything about the Year of the Environment, and whether there's an alternative approach. Is there a possibility to build a lightweight website to promote things ourselves and show that in the absence of leadership from the council the community can just get on with it?