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Robert Napier and his small team of press advisers seem anxious about getting the newly appointed chair of the Homes and Communities Agency鈥檚 picture taken just right. One adviser used to advise John Prescott, and happened to be snapped engaging in a rather inopportune game of croquet with him at his Dorneywood ministerial residence a few years ago, so her nervousness is understandable. Napier, however, is anxious for a different reason: he relates how, as chief executive of building materials company Redland during the depths of the last housing downturn, he allowed his photograph to be taken in his warehouse, which was full of supplies. The subsequent stories showing him virtually buried under a pile of unsold bricks were less than helpful, he chuckles.

In a sense, Napier is under another pile of bricks. Currently chair of regeneration agency English Partnerships (EP), in December he will cross over to the HCA, which will be formed from the merger of EP with the Housing Corporation and some central government functions. He will suddenly become directly responsible for getting 240,000 homes built every year in the middle of the toughest housing market since the seventies. The NHBC says private home starts are now running 60% down on last year, and nobody expects more than 100,000 homes to be started. With the government vacillating over possible changes to stamp duty, the piles of bricks in the yard are only getting higher.

Depending on your viewpoint, the creation of the HCA is either the last great hope for the industry or a dangerous move at a dangerous time. It is also an interesting move for Napier, a man who has flitted back and forth across the thinning divide between construction and conservation over his career. This man, with a 拢16bn budget to build homes and regenerate cities, told the Guardian in 1999 the thing that made him happiest in life was 鈥渁n unspoilt landscape鈥�. Favourite city? 鈥淚 prefer the country.鈥�

Napier鈥檚 passion for nature stems from his background. He was born in Dundee and brought up in Perth, both in the east of Scotland, where he gained a love for 鈥渨ild open spaces鈥�. From a family of self-made professionals, he was educated privately, at Sedburgh in Cumbria. Today he seems every bit the establishment figure. While he keeps his politics private, he has the air of a traditional Conservative MP, partly because of the voice 鈥� impeccable RP with a hint of east-Scots burr (more Malcolm Rifkind than Gordon Brown). After 30 years in environmentally dubious companies, including mining giant Rio Tinto Zinc and Redland, he made quite a stir by becoming chief executive of green charity WWF in 1999. The appointment was likened to putting King Herod in charge of the cr猫che.

Today, though, his priority is meeting those government targets. Like his chief executive, Sir Bob Kerslake, he is keen to talk about the 鈥渟ingle conversation鈥� the agency will strike up by linking government funding for social housing, housing growth areas, council housing refurbishment, regeneration and the Thames Gateway. The idea is to use this cash to enable councils to fund the schemes they want to put forward.

He does not, however, seek to downplay the situation the government is in with housing. He says: 鈥淲hat鈥檚 extraordinary is how quickly it鈥檚 happened. If you look at graphs comparing this downturn to previous ones, it鈥檚 just fallen off a cliff. It鈥檚 been startling, and it鈥檚 frightened people.鈥�

The communities department, with EP and other agencies, is currently working up a package of measures to address the downturn, to be unveiled in the autumn. When I suggest the government looked initially like a rabbit caught in the headlights, he admits it has been shocked and forced to regroup. 鈥淚f you want to use that analogy,鈥� he smiles, 鈥渨e know it鈥檚 dark out there, but we have our own lighting.鈥�

Central to this approach will be greater flexibility over the way the agency interacts with developers than before, including more joint ventures and the use of investment rather than grant funding. The 鈥済ood old EP鈥� approach, as he characterises it, won鈥檛 be enough. He also refuses to repeat the promise to build 2 million homes by 2016, thereby coming as close as any government official has to admitting that it is unachievable. 鈥淚鈥檓 not going to get quoted on the 2016 target 鈥� it鈥檚 too difficult to tell. But that鈥檚 just being realistic. It鈥檚 not a failure. We want to get as many houses built as we sensibly can.鈥�

Come on. It鈥檚 perfectly possible to build the homes we need without wholesale destruction of the countryside.

Robert Napier

He also knows he will not get far bashing housebuilders. While insisting environmental targets will have to be met, come rain or shine, he professes to be happy with the industry鈥檚 progress on quality. 鈥淭he better quality they build,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he more likely they are to sell houses. I don鈥檛 want to knock them at the moment.鈥�

In public policy terms, Napier is probably best known for his very public resignation from the government team working up the Code for Sustainable Homes. The move, accompanied by a letter to the Guardian, forced the government to reassess its direction, pushing it towards much tougher environmental standards for new homes.

But it鈥檚 not hard to tell, even three years on, that such radical action runs very against the grain for such an instinctive insider. 鈥淚 had never resigned from anything before in my life, and I was hesitant to do so.鈥� He is clear he is not likely to take such a stand again.

So where do his personal commitments actually lie? Is the campaigning environmentalist of the WWF years lurking in the background behind the builder of 3 million homes? Is there not a tension here? Apparently not. 鈥淐ome on,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 perfectly possible to build the homes we need without wholesale destruction of the countryside.

鈥淚 like beautiful places. Places that inspire you. That can be a lonely mountain top or the middle of a town, with wonderful architecture and community feeling.鈥�

It is in helping the construction of these new beautiful places that he thinks he can resolve these very different imperatives.

But for now, he just has to get homes built in a recession. He has a theory that great leaders are those that can adjust to profoundly changing circumstances: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the real test.鈥� And it鈥檚 a test that, for the sake of the housing industry, Napier himself needs to pass.