Centre for Cities sets out an ambitious new approach to regeneration in cities and neighbourhoods facing decline

Date: 14/12/2010

The Government’s approach to physical regeneration in England’s ex-industrial cities will not work for local residents and a new way forward is needed, according to a new report by the Centre for Cities. 

Over the past decade, the blueprint for city regeneration has been to build houses, offices, apartment blocks and science parks on the assumption that this could spark economic growth in any urban area or neighbourhood.  £5bn has been spent on physical regeneration by regional development agencies outside London.

And new Coalition incentives like the New Homes Bonus, expected in the Localism Bill, will encourage all cities to build, regardless of how well placed they are to expand, rather than creating room for cities to pursue plans that work for them.

Many regeneration projects have not ‘turned around’ local economies or the lives of local residents in the way that had been hoped.  It’s thought that the average underperforming regeneration project in England generated 40 percent fewer jobs than anticipated when originally planned.  Vacant housing in these areas has often remained and office space is often difficult to let.

These projects have been battling against long term economic forces like industrial decline and globalisation, which have meant the population and job opportunities in some urban areas and neighbourhoods have grown and others shrunk. 

With public funds for regeneration now scarce, it’s critical that regeneration projects of the right size and scope are planned. 

The Centre is today urging city leaders and national government to adopt an ambitious new approach, focused on addressing the scars of industrial decline directly and learning from pioneering initiatives used in US and German cities. 

The report recommends:

• Local and national politicians should accept that using regeneration plans to ‘go for growth’ hasn’t worked in every urban neighbourhood and can have negative as well as positive consequences on a city’s economy and residents.
• A new way forward might mean building a park rather than a science park, or turning tiny terraces into larger homes, rather than knocking them down and building one bed flats.   Communities should be given the power to decide on plans, testing out the neighbourhood planning approach expected in the Localism Bill.
• The Coalition introduces a permanent Transformation Fund in the next Spending Review to help cities introduce these kinds of projects – and to help improve quality of life in neighbourhoods undergoing industrial and population decline.

• The Coalition urgently needs to find new money for the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder areas.  The programme needs reviewing.  Frequently its sound principles were poorly implemented.  But the Coalition’s decision to leave the scheme unfinished means the communities concerned will bear an unfair cost. 

Alexandra Jones, Chief Executive of the Centre for Cities said,

“The Coalition is encouraging all urban areas to ‘go for growth’ through incentives like the New Homes Bonus,but the neighbourhoods grappling with industrial decline and the impacts of recession and cuts need to stabilise first. 

“In the past, city leaders and national government have championed the replacement of out of use steel works and empty terraces with office and apartment blocks.  These projects did not improve opportunities for local residents in the way they had hoped, and public and developer finance is now limited.

“Shifting plans from building a science park to creating a public park in these places is not about giving up on growth – it’s about improving the area for local residents, who should be at the heart of the decision making process.  This is an approach that has worked for US and German cities.  Ambition and innovation from city leadership are the key ingredients.” 

For more information, please contact:

Rosamund Taylor, External Affairs Manager
020 7803 4316/  07876 175 426

Notes to editors:
Grand Designs? A new approach to the built environment in England’s cities is available at www.centreforcities.org/granddesigns

Grand Designs? is the third part of the Centre's Agenda for Growth series:

• The first paper – Private Sector Cities, published on Monday 7 June – set out the geography of private sector job growth in England’s economy and identified that some cities are much better placed than others to generate the private sector jobs needed to drive economic recovery.
•  The second paper – Firm Intentions, published on Friday 17 September – provided advice to central and national government on growing private sector employment, re-balancing the economy and decentralising power to local communities.  

In focusing on the built environment in this report, we recognise that built environment policies need to be integrated with appropriate employment, skills, health and other policies to deal with the challenges experiencing population and industrial decline.  Future reports will discuss these topics in more detail. 

Additional facts and stats from the report:

The report includes examples of:

Cities where house building has out paced population growth

Liverpool saw its overall population decline by over 5,000 over the past five years (2004-2009) but 12,000 extra homes were built in the city during this period.  For every two departing residents, an additional home was built.

City-wide, some neighbourhoods continue to see high house prices and have potential to grow further, but other neighbourhoods like Anfield, for example, have a high share of empty homes.  There are now over 25,000 vacant properties across the city – one in twenty homes lie empty.

Liverpool is an example of a city that has started to tackle urban decay directly through the previous government’s Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder Programme.  The funding has been wound up early and, while the national programme needed review and reform, as it stands, half demolished communities have been left in limbo.

Cities with commercial developments that aren’t attracting business occupants

Over the past decade, Barnsley shed 2,300 private sector jobs from its economy.  In 2009 Barnsley’s Gateway Plaza, a city centre commercial property project, subsidised by the public sector, was completed.  The development, with 96,000 square ft of office space, cost £70 million, including £5 million EU funding.  Barnsley Council recently purchased the site and is now set to occupy 78,000 square ft.  More recently, Barnsley has focused more on improving its links with Leeds and Sheffield to secure its economic future.

Cities with too much property development in areas where it is not needed

Between 2004 and 2009, more houses (30 percent) were built in the areas of Greater Manchester like Salford, Oldham and Tameside where demand was lower – compared to 25 percent in areas like Stockport, Trafford and Bury where demand was highest.