Examination of witnesses (Questions 20
- 37)
WEDNESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2000
LORD ROGERS
OF RIVERSIDE,
MR JON
ROUSE and MS
WENDY THOMSON
20. Who would do the joining up?
(Ms Thomson) That is where we saw the local partnerships
perhaps on a wider scale than we are used to in small local area
initiatives, but we mentioned the idea in different regeneration
vehicles, public-private partnerships of the kind that you see
in some ways now, but perhaps with a wider remit and a broader
range so that they can pick-and-mix from the range of measures
available. Some special initiatives that we have suggested have
already taken effect since the report was published. That shows
that local initiatives can take off by themselves. The home zones
idea is one that is already running.
21. My question concerns how these things work
together to contribute to change, not about how they work separately.
(Ms Thomson) We felt there was a need for them to
be brought together with more local say.
22. Who by?
(Ms Thomson) We call them the urban regeneration companies.
23. Let me take you to that. In Liverpool the
new urban regeneration company, Liverpool Vision, is now operating.
What should that be doing in this context and should it have powers
in addition to those that it already has?
(Ms Thomson) We were not suggesting that they have
specific planning powers.
24. How should it operate? In Liverpool one
of your suggestions is being implemented. Liverpool Vision has
been set up and it is starting to operate. What should that organisation
be doing in terms of bringing together various other initiatives?
Do you not see it in that way? That was one of your suggestions.
(Mr Rouse) We welcome the fact that regeneration companies
have been established in Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and
there are one or two more in the pipeline. However, we also recommend
that they need to be equipped with sufficient powers to do the
job in hand. As far as we are aware, those steps have not been
taken.
25. What specific powers, of the kind that you
recommended, should an urban regeneration company have?
(Mr Rouse) We have set out five additional freedoms
that they should have. They are concerned with private sector
partners being able to make contributions to those companies,
while not being penalised through the tax system. That means that
they can make an investment through that vehicle without being
penalised. That is one example. The second is to give local authorities
more freedom in terms of how they operate through those companies
without all the restrictions that flow from having a stake in
them of over 20 per cent. That is another key area that would
make a difference. There is also the matter of how registered
social landlords can participate in those companies and the matter
of reducing the restriction on them operating in partnership.
It is freeing the institutions to work together. In terms of what
they do, we foresee that they would take on two or three key areas
within a city and concentrate, through a special masterplan, through
a process of implementation, project management, after care—the
full regeneration process, through a 10 or even a 15-year period,
until the decline has been stemmed and those areas become self-sustaining.
They have to be in for the long term to provide identity and focus
within the area and to bring together the specialist skills of
the existing institutions and concentrate them until the job is
done.
26. Should those companies or any other vehicle
have the powers to bring together the different initiatives operating
in the areas that you have designated?
(Mr Rouse) A company like that can go only so far.
It can bring together the initiatives concerned with physical
regeneration, and start to overlap into economic development and
social inclusion, but there is a broader issue concerned with
employment zones, education zones and the health service. That
really is a job for the national Government. They have to show
local institutions how they can join up those very broad initiatives
so that they make sense to local people. I do not think that step
has yet been taken.
27. In terms of national joining together, you
suggest an urban policy for bringing together the various levels
of regional, central and local government. How do you see that
operating so that your suggested initiatives have more impact
in the inner city? How will that work? How will it be more effective?
(Lord Rogers of Riverside) Clearly there is a tremendous
need to have powerful leadership and decision making. That has
to go across the board. I have said that before. Cities are made
of institutions and if cities do not work the institutions are
at a great disadvantage. We are suggesting that we need to empower
right at the top where we get a cross-government department intervention
into the future of cities. We have suggested that that could be
at Cabinet level. We are conscious that whereas the work that
we are doing seems to be accepted within the DETR, my impression
is that we are still working with each department tending to look
after its own sector. We are saying that that does not work in
cities. We have to get that across. Jon Rouse will expand on that.
(Mr Rouse) The reason for speaking of local, regional
and national matters is that once the White Paper is in place
you have to get on with the institutions at each level, local,
regional and national. One of the ways of doing that—it
is an innovative step in terms of this country and we recognise
the radicalism of the proposal—is to put national and local
politicians and maybe in the future regional government politicians
on an equal footing in a single committee dedicated to implementing
the White Paper principles across the different tiers of government
and across departments over a lengthy period. That is not a firm
recommendation in the report, and maybe some of our members considered
it a little too radical, but we believe that there is merit in
it.
Mr O'Brien
28. Your report emphasises the role of good
urban design. You pointed that out in your presentation when you
mentioned "doughnutting". The DETR memorandum seems
to have little to say on the subject. Should the White Paper concentrate
more on jobs, schools and other issues involving urban design
to make it successful?
(Mr Rouse) From the outset we recognise that the whole
report does not cover economic development in sufficient detail
in respect of the Urban White Paper. We recognise that the Urban
White Paper will combine what we have done with broader policies
on attracting jobs into urban areas. We believe that the Government
are already taking some significant steps in that direction, particularly
in respect of PPG12, which recognises, for example, the importance
of promoting business practices in urban areas and other places.
Some steps are being taken in the right direction. At the end
of the day, it comes down to recognising urban districts and neighbourhoods
as spatial frameworks in which you need to allocate land optimally
to provide decent homes and jobs. During our studies before we
wrote the report, we found out that there were estimates that
some 20 per cent of jobs will be created in home-work situations
over the next 20 years. In 20 years' time, 20 per cent of us will
work from home. Also 80 per cent of new jobs will be created in
small and medium-sized enterprises. Those types of provisions
can be provided in the urban framework such as we describe. It
is crucial that we find spatial policies to allow those jobs to
be located together within our urban areas.
Mr Benn
29. In your report you talk about the need for
a spatial masterplan. The centre of Leeds is redeveloping itself
very successfully along the river. Those bits are taking care
of themselves. The problem areas are urban communities very close
to the city centre that are on a downward spiral. In such areas
property prices are falling, there is crime, unemployment and
poverty and people want to get out. How would a spatial masterplan
address those very real problems sometimes in quite small communities?
(Lord Rogers of Riverside) The spatial masterplan
is useful in the public domain. If you do not see it in three
dimensions it has little value. You need to do that to get a higher
quality of design of the environment so that we know where people
can move, what it feels like and so on. It is very difficult to
calculate densities without space. Much of the argument that we
have about figures is that we do not think three dimensionally.
There is a tendency in planning—going back to institutions—as
Peter Hall was saying at London University that planners work
in two dimensions. However, cities are about three dimensions
and we need to work three-dimensionally to include the quality
of the spaces.
30. This morning you talked about the advantages
of high density development. When the Deputy Prime Minister suggested
that recently he got it in the neck from certain quarters. How
do you persuade those who are not sure that that is the right
road down which to go, when, in fact, it is?
(Lord Rogers of Riverside) We are back to "how
long is a piece of string?" Density is variable. There is
a tremendous fear of city cramming, but I do not know of city
cramming due to densities in post-war development. I know a lot
of badly designed, three-dimensional places where buildings over-shadow
other buildings and therefore you can say that they are crowded
or the streets are badly organised, but that is not a density
problem. We are building about 23 units per hectare in Britain.
Comparing that with all the places that we like, a Cornish village
is probably 16 units per hectare and the units are probably two-storey
units. One does not usually say that a Cornish village is crammed.
Historically they are built up. On the Continent the density goes
up to 200. Considering market pressures, the densities in the
most expensive areas of cities, such as Belgravia, Park Avenue
or Avenue Foch, are in the hundreds. It is not density but quality
levels that we should look at. There has to be a variation. We
are now talking about the green towns of that period and recommending
40. Our concern is that there is still a recommendation for going
down to 23, even though Ebenezer Howard(?) was working on 40.
We say that it is possible that if you want a walking, bicycling
type of community you need to get those 5,000 to 10,000 people
together ideally within a five minute walk. That gives the sort
of density. So you can look at a city and diagnose it and create
an anatomy of a city which tends to be denser than we have been
working to. I do not think that we are saying that there is any
ideal density—that is a mistake—but overall our recommendation,
if you want communities and neighbourhoods, is that the density
has to be greater than it has been.
Chairman
31. Can you give us one example of high density
housing that has worked that has been built in England within
the past 40 years?
(Mr Rouse) Although it is always dangerous to quote
something that has not had time to work, some areas that are showing
potential are Crown Street in Glasgow in the Gorbals area, Hulme
in Manchester and one or two parts of Birmingham that have been
redeveloped, such as the jewellery quarter. Those are three examples.
Mr Gray
32. What is the density of Poundbury?
(Mr Rouse) I do not know.
(Lord Rogers of Riverside) A site at Greenwich I know
of has about 80 units and I know that both the developer and the
architect would probably say that it should be slightly higher.
Mr Stevenson
33. The report has been criticised in some quarters
for ignoring the concerns of smaller towns in favour of bigger
cities. How do you react to that criticism and what should the
White Paper say about it?
(Mr Rouse) The first thing to say is that we believe
that the report is applicable to smaller towns. It was certainly
intended to be. There should be something for every street in
every town. I relate to that through my personal experience. I
live in a small town on the outskirts of Nottingham, Beeston.
I look at the principles in the report and I think the same things
are applicable. For example, there is a need to regenerate the
town centre so that the amenities and institutions are within
walking distance of where I live. There is a need to control traffic
through the introduction of a home zone so that it is easier to
walk and cycle around the neighbourhood and so that it is easier
for the children to walk to primary and secondary schools. Those
are brass-tacks issues that are just as applicable to Beeston
as they are to the centre of Nottingham.
34. On the wider scene, there is a huge imbalance
between the economic fortunes of the South East, for example,
and other regions, particularly the Midlands and the North. Can
you be more specific in terms of what measures the White Paper
should contain that would actually channel investment into those
other areas particularly the utilisation of brown-field sites
rather than green-field sites?
(Ms Thomson) We have said already that we would not
claim to have made economic development our main focus. We recognised
that analysing the mis-match between housing demand and land availability
and that unless some of the measures that we were recommending
were applied, the need to accommodate people in the brown-field
would not be achieved. All the fiscal measures and some of the
planning changes that we were recommending are what we felt would
be necessary to make full use of the land that was available in
cities. The wider economic issues are really ones that are fully
addressed within the regional economic strategies being employed
and the need to address issues.
(Lord Rogers of Riverside) We recommend that this
should be seen nationally rather than regionally. We cannot bend
purely to market pressures. There needs to be encouragement in
areas that are more depressed than others. That is a major part
of our planning recommendations.
35. Some commentators have suggested that without
restrictions on expansion in the South and South East, the prospects
of the Midlands and the North of obtaining greater prosperity
are compromised. Do you agree with that?
(Lord Rogers of Riverside) We accept that regional
planning is needed. That links back to the position of "brown
fields first". If the demand is such that environmentally,
as well as economically, one area gets much richer than another,
there needs to be a national strategy.
36. The prospect of attracting investment into
other regions outside the South East depends on many factors.
One of those important factors clearly would be the quality of
life, the quality of public services and so on, that you have
talked about in the report. Given the huge imbalances between
local government finance between the South and the Midlands and
the North—there is a huge imbalance—and given that
you have said that there should be different spending allocations
although you did not get into SSAs and RSGs, is there not an important
point here about the ability of local authorities in the Midlands
and the North being able to play their full role when the spending
per head of population through such mechanisms as SSA and RSG
is so heavily weighted to regions in the South East?
(Mr Rouse) I can answer that in three words: Comprehensive
Spending Review. That is absolutely crucial to implementing our
recommendations. We believe that is important to the whole concept
of renaissance and regeneration particularly in the cities of
the North and the Midlands, remembering also the parts of London
that are equally deprived. It is absolutely essential that that
objective is at the heart of the Comprehensive Spending Review
when considering the allocations to each of the departments, and
to local government through SSAs and RSG. The other step that
we believe needs to be taken is to give local authorities greater
freedom in terms of how they combine and allocate resources once
they have them to spend so that the money is not allocated in
an arbitrary fashion.
Chairman
37. On that note, I thank you very much for
your evidence. You have given us a good, provocative start to
our inquiry.
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