A rock star is giving £3.6m from his own pocket to bring affordable homes for 400 people to one of England’s most expensive areas.

Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour plans to create homes for low-income public sector workers and homeless people in central London.

The project was inspired by a similar scheme, Common Ground, in New York where companies such as Ben and Jerry’s provide work and training for residents.

Other facilities for the previously homeless would include education centres and drugs counselling.

He became a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List the same year.

Gilmour, who attended the palace with his wife Holly and two of his eight children, donated £4.5m to help the homeless in May.

“I hope that primarily it is for what I have done in music, but if some of my… charity work has made a difference then I am happy about that,” he said.

If only some of the local money in Armenia could learn from such an example.

Totally unrelated, but my maternal Uncle was made both an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen after a distinguished career in the British army that included heading the logistics side of the UNPROFOR mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina during 1993.

I’m still rather proud of that. Good on him, and not least because I was pleased to see that he had some Red Hot Chili Peppers on his iPod when I played with it last year, and had just taken delivery of a rather lovely new limited edition Ducati sports bike.

Did I say proud? Perhaps I should say jealous…