Regeneration report deserves full response

So the long awaited report from the communities and local government select committee into the coalition government’s regeneration strategy is finally with us. The word “damning” just about covers it.

The select committee takes as its starting point the Government’s own document on its approach to regeneration, Regeneration to enable growth: What the Government is doing in support of community-led regeneration, and asks whether its strategy bears scrutiny. The committee concludes that it does not, stating:

“We do not consider Regeneration to enable growth to be adequate as a statement of the Government’s approach: it lacks strategic coherence and does not seek to define what is meant by the term ‘regeneration’. It is unclear about the nature of the problem it is trying to solve and to what overall outcome the measures set out will contribute.”

The report goes on to conclude that the Government’s regeneration policies appear to be largely concerned with promoting economic growth, and that there is no strategy for ensuring that economic growth benefits England’s most deprived communities. The report says:

“The overwhelming focus of Regeneration to enable growth… appears to be upon achieving this economic growth. There seems to be an implicit assumption that wider growth will “trickle down” to the most deprived areas. However, we are concerned that, as communities with greater potential absorb the benefits of economic growth, the most deprived areas could be left further behind. It is not clear that the measures in the document will help to rebalance the economy towards less prosperous parts of the country; indeed, there is a risk that some could have a detrimental effect.”

Then there is the matter of funding. Of course, nobody would expect that in an age of austerity regeneration would be unaffected. But the select committee report makes it clear that the cuts imposed on regeneration budgets are hugely disproportionate. Taking a figure contained in Valuing the benefits of regeneration, a DCLG produced report commissioned by the previous administration, as its baseline, the committee states that budget for “core” regeneration activities in 2009/10 was £11.189 billion. The committee then asked DCLG to provide comparable figures for 2010/11 and 2011/12, which came back as £7.926 billion and £3.872 billion respectively.

As if a 65 percent drop in funding over two years weren’t bad enough, the figure for 2011/12 includes almost £1 billion from new coalition initiatives such as the New Homes Bonus, the Regional Growth Fund and the FirstBuy programme. The committee argues that such initiatives should not be included in a tally of core regeneration funding as their benefits for the country’s most deprived neighbourhoods are tangential at best.

Taking the Regional Growth Fund first, the committee asked Lord Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister and chair of the RGF independent advisory panel, how the RGF relates to regeneration. Heseltine’s answer is unambiguous:

“The fact is the Regional Growth Fund is not about regeneration. We have never been told to go and regenerate any community or anything like that.”

The committee similarly does not classify the New Homes Bonus, as well as investments in high speed rail and the east-west London service Crossrail, as initiatives targeted at the country’s most deprived communities. The report concludes:

“Regeneration to enable growth places undue emphasis on schemes such as the Regional Growth Fund, New Homes Bonus, High Speed Rail and Crossrail; while these programmes may have their own merits—and may even bring some benefits to deprived communities, their primary focus is not on tackling deprivation in disadvantaged areas. Moreover, as the Centre for Local Economic Strategies said, “It is hard to see how the infrastructure projects of HS2, Olympics, Crossrail and the New Homes Bonus contribute towards the objective of community led regeneration’’.

The report also examines the fate of England’s housing market renewal (HMR) areas, which have had their funding almost entirely pulled by the coalition approximately half way through a planned programme instigated by the previous government. It acknowledges the many controversies that beset the HMR programme, but states:

“Whatever the merits of the programme, the decision to end funding so suddenly has had a profound impact on the lives of people in towns and cities throughout the North and Midlands. Many of those left in the mainly cleared areas are owner occupiers, often elderly and vulnerable people, who have no alternatives.”

The conclusions of the select committee report deserve a full response. Select committee reports are not put together in haste (this particular inquiry took over ten months), nor are they partisan documents (the committee has five Labour members, five Conservative and one Liberal Democrat).

They reflect the careful considerations of cross-party groups of senior parliamentarians, informed by reams of written evidence and the views of hugely experienced professionals, as well as members of the public directly affected by the matter at hand.

Unfortunately, the government has so far failed to address many of the criticisms in the report. Housing minister Grant Shapps’ response to the select committee’s findings is quoted below in full:

“It’s certainly been tough picking up the pieces after Labour’s disastrous attempts at regeneration, which amounted to bulldozing buildings and knocking down neighbourhoods in some of the most deprived areas of the country, whilst desperately hoping someone might come along to reorder the rubble.

“The top-down strategy of destruction pitted neighbour against neighbour and left families trapped in abandoned streets. That’s why we’ve parked the bulldozers, and started shifting the balance in favour of communities themselves. We’ll shortly be announcing additional funding to help those people living in the worst-affected streets, and we’ll continue to untie the hands of councils and residents so they can make the key decisions over how they would like to improve their own neighbourhoods.

“But we know that true regeneration can only be achieved by creating the conditions for communities and businesses to thrive in. That’s why Local Enterprise Partnerships have already replaced the failed regional development agencies, and low tax, low regulation Enterprise Zones are being planted across the country to give businesses the incentives they need to grow their local economy and create thousands of new jobs.”

In particular, Shapps’ comments are likely to provoke an angry response in the communities affected by the withdrawal of Housing Market Renewal funding. In his statement he says that “[Labour’s] top-down strategy of destruction pitted neighbour against neighbour and left families trapped in abandoned streets”. This select committee report places the blame elsewhere, stating:

“The withdrawal of Housing Market Renewal Funding in particular has created significant problems, leaving many residents trapped in half-abandoned streets.”

Shapps’ promise of “additional funding to help those people living in the worst-affected streets” will have prompted a lot of interest in HMR areas. But further enquiries from Planning have revealed that this is only an extra £5.5 million on top of the £30 million “transition” fund announced back in May. The £30 million fund is to be distributed to what the DCLG viewed as the five “most challenged” HMR areas: Merseyside, East Lancashire, North Staffordshire, Hull and Teeside. Councils were invited to bid for the money, but as yet no announcement has been made about which areas are getting what.

All in all, it appears that Shapps has made no attempt to engage with the substance of the report. The people living in the areas affected by the withdrawal of regeneration funding deserve better.