", < Regeneration, < New Start editorial index page Discuss or Comment on this article - Join in the discussion and add your comment to this article's discussion page - your comments may be considered for publication in New Start Hang around regeneration conferences and you\u2019re bound to hear a bit of refreshing honesty. Last week\u2019s Bura event was a case in point: not, unfortunately, the ministerial speeches, but the unguarded remarks that offer rather more insight into what\u2019s really going on. Among the asides that particularly struck me was the observation of a housing association chief executive that regenerators are \u2018never given long enough to do the job properly\u2019 - with the comment that the proposed merger of English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation would \u2018throw the whole system into confusion for at least two years\u2019. It isn\u2019t just the NHS that\u2019s groaning under the burden of energy-sapping reorganisations that divert much-needed investment into internal politics. It\u2019s jam tomorrow at the price of logjam today. And then there was the developer who candidly admitted that the so-called \u2018regeneration sites\u2019 his group are involved in are really just \u2018housing sites\u2019. A momentary flash of frankness and the myth the industry spends millions of pounds on goes up in smoke - they build houses, not communities. Regeneration events often reveal how we speak the same language, but fail to understand each other - and conceal very different agendas behind similar jargon. One delegate last week suggested we needed a new breed of \u2018social lexicographers\u2019 to help us define and appreciate what we all mean when we use the same words. It would certainly help us to understand the connections and interdependency between the physical, economic and social aspects of regeneration: it\u2019s only when you meet a few of the people who are paid handsome salaries to do the job that you realise how much lip-service goes on. There are plenty of people who have lived through regeneration projects and do have such an understanding. It should be compulsory for developers, masterplanners and builders to involve some of them in their planning before one brick is put on top of another. Ministers and civil servants could benefit from their advice too on whether those grand reorganisations will make a jot of difference where it really matters. In the meantime, let\u2019s keep providing opportunities for unguarded remarks. If nothing else, they show how far we have to go. Julian Dobson, editorial director, New Start Online magazine SCA Wiki - Places, projects & networks - Ideas Bank - News - Diary - Resources - Community / Avoid adverts"@en . . "New Start editorial October 18 2006"@en . ", < Regeneration, < New Start editorial index page Discuss or Comment on this article - Join in the discussion and add your comment to this article's discussion page - your comments may be considered for publication in New Start Hang around regeneration conferences and you\u2019re bound to hear a bit of refreshing honesty. Last week\u2019s Bura event was a case in point: not, unfortunately, the ministerial speeches, but the unguarded remarks that offer rather more insight into what\u2019s really going on. Julian Dobson, editorial director, New Start Online magazine"@en . . .