It did not meet its optimistic targets – Gordon Brown, setting it up, had hoped for an extra 3m homes by 2020 – and would be wound up and replaced by another initiative called Homes England in 2018.īy then, Kerslake had moved into national government under the Conservative administration in 2010 as permanent secretary at the Department of Communities and Local Government. The agency also suffered from underinvestment by governments. Unfortunately the foundation of the agency coincided with that year’s world financial crisis, which plunged some housing associations towards insolvency. “So it needed something big and exciting to persuade me to leave, but this seemed to me to be a fantastic opportunity. “I immensely enjoyed my time in Sheffield,” he told the Times in 2008. He was lured by the prospect of heading the new Home and Communities Agency, which was intended to be a unifying body, boosting house building, particularly to provide affordable homes.
Even after he left Sheffield, he kept a house in the city, close to the Peak District where he could take his dog for long walks.
Kerslake had a reputation for working long hours – he was known to phone journalists for interviews at 7am – and came to be called “whispering Bob” because of his quiet way of speaking. Bob Kerslake, second right, in 2018, chairing the independent review into the Manchester Arena bombing.
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