NAEPP News Update

Conference Latest

We are close to booking an important additional session.  We've invited the Audit Commission to give a presentation on their evaluation of local authorities' empty homes work.  We hope to confirm that by the end of the week.  This may encourage senior managers to ransack their over-stretched budgets to let you go. Or even go themselves.  Hopefully as well as, not instead of.

Meantime, some people want to know about the venue and hotels.  The conference isn't being held in a hotel this time.  It's at the Studio.  Here's the link if you want to check it out.

http://www.studiovenues.co.uk/

Here is a Newsletter focusing on the forthcomig National Conference on May 25th in Birmingham.  There are also news items on the Subscriber option and Collective Membership option.

Additionally, if you think you might be able to come to the Conference, it would be a big help for everyone if you could fill  out the questionnaire in the Excel attachment.   You'll need to save it to your PC (either before or after editing it) and then email to us at admin@naepp.org.uk.

David Gibbens (Policy and Support)

Dear colleagues

It seems that the notifications module has been updated in version 6 of our content management system such that it now notifies you of changed content as well as new content.

As I am going through updating broken links that is generating quite a lot notifications.  I've reset the frequency of notifications so there won't be too many emails but I can't change the fact that it is notifying you of changes.  Sorry for any inconvenience.

I am just about to start testing the new version of notifications that will hopefully be available within the next two weeks.  That is far more configurable, allowing you individually to select the frequency of notifications (amongst other things).

Dear colleagues

The NAEPP website is being upgraded to the latest version of software (Drupal 6).  This will be followed very quickly by further upgrades to the functionality of the site, in particular the long-promised improvements to the notifications system.  The theme (appearance) will also be improved.

In an ideal world all these changes would happen together in one big bang.  But that is a more costly approach because we would have to test everything out and then go back and reapply changes from the very beginning to the live system.  So we are following a middle way and doing things in stages.

Dear Colleague

I'll keep this very brief. We'd like to know how things are going in your area with empty homes work.  Are they getting better or worse and if so, in what ways?  Such information will be helpful as we promote empty work against a background that in most but not all areas seems to be deteriorating.

There is a very simple 6-box questionnaire in Excel you can download and send to admin@naepp.org.uk

Please help us - and yourselves - by taking literally a couple of minutes to fill it in and sent it back to us.

Thanks very much for you help.

David Gibbens

Here's our latest newsletter.  Enjoy!

Dear NAEPP Members

The latest draft of our proposals are now on the website. You can find the document on the front page of the website You will  not need to log in to download the document.  Your feedback will be welcomed via emails to admin@naepp.org.uk .

Dear Colleagues

We've just added an upated draft of the National Action Plan on Empty Homes to our website (or simply go to the front page of the website at www.naepp.org.uk ).