Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540
- 559)
WEDNESDAY 22 MARCH 2000
BARONESS DEAN
OF THORNTON-LE-FYLDE
AND MR
SIMON DOW
540. Do you think the Urban Regeneration Companies,
like those set up in Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield now,
need any more powers to be effective?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) I think it is
early days to say that yet. Certainly there should be sufficient
power and providing one of the key factors is the local authority's
involvement. The local authority has a number of powers in an
area which we do not have and other organisations do not have.
So what we want to do is get the ones you are talking about in
Liverpool and Manchester up and running, we will monitor them
very closely, and it may well be that they may need extra powers
but at the moment we think they should be able to work quite successfully
with what they have got.
541. How do you see Housing Regeneration Companies
working?
(Mr Dow) Obviously the urban priority area is the
starting point, and we believe strongly that that is a good approach.
So the Urban Regeneration Company very much is working across
the piece in particular combining the complexities of the housing
and the planning and the economic framework. Housing Regeneration
Companies, as the chairman said, drill down into a local neighbourhood
and can actually harness the activities of those organisations
which really know the area and critically of course the residents
as well, and they can actually bring a very localised focus. We
are clear that these issues need to be dealt with on a local basis,
certainly not a regional and indeed in many cases not an entirely
borough basis either. So to make regeneration relevant locally,
a Housing Regeneration Company takes the urban priority area,
the Urban Regeneration Company agenda, and drills down to make
it locally focused, locally relevant, locally delivered.
542. Are those companies going to be able to
encourage private sector housing as well as social housing?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) On the policy
of having mixed tenure and mixed involvement—and we have
all learnt the lessons of not having that kind of policy—we
would have no problem with that at all. It is involving those
who can make things happen in the area to the satisfaction of
the community of the area. So it may well be that the local building
company can come in and lead in some areas. We would like to see
local health people, education, transport, all come in, because
that way we will start to make sustainable communities. It is
quite clear that although we are called the Housing Corporation,
we cannot just build the houses and walk away because we just
leave the problem.
Christine Butler
543. Is there still a need for the Housing Corporation
to distribute funds for social housing?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) We believe there
is but you might say that I would say that, wouldn't I. We have
examined this problem because at the moment we are going through
our quinquennial review as an organisation. If you want to have
a national policy which central government can influence and ensure
is delivered, the mechanism of the Housing Corporation is one
way of doing it and of course the other benefit, I suppose, it
brings to the table is to lever-in the private sector funding
as well. If you want a national strategy, I think that is a key
factor.
544. What you said then about this total array—this
confusion—of other bodies dealing with regeneration, how
can anyone take control of that? It is a partnership approach
but it is a confusing array. That is why I asked the question.
Do you think you should be the prime mover in that?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) No, we should
be one of the partners and I do not think that necessarily leads
to confusion. On the ground, people are pretty clear of what their
requirements are. We have accountability to Parliament and to
the Department. That partnership with local authorities is now
better than it has been for a long, long time. We do not believe
there is an array which confuses people. We have a quite clear
remit. We put money in, the local authority will put some of its
social housing grant in, and also the housing association itself
can use money from its reserves to build up a pool of money. I
personally do not see, and we do not see as an organisation, how
you can say, "Right, all of those agencies out, just have
one", because the way to go forward in the future is not
to have different channels, it is actually to work together. That
may in your area include some of the health budget, but it may
not in another area.
545. What are you doing to encourage Registered
Social Landlords to move beyond building houses to sustainable
urban regeneration?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) This is a very
topical point. Last year we were helped by the Minister taking
through the House a change to "permissible purposes"
because, as I said earlier, it is no longer just about housing,
it is about communities. We regulate the housing associations
and clearly we have to be sure that with taxpayer funding and
with private sector confidence that it is regulated properly.
We will be publishing very shortly after a long consultation period
our policy for regulating diversity. We welcome diversity providing
the investment that is there is not put at risk.
546. What about Housing Plus? You have quoted
that.
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) Yes. Indeed Professor
Parkinson, who is sat at the back there, his university did a
very good assessment of Housing Plus. It is very popular, it has
been very successful and we would like to see more of it.
547. Does it give our Registered Social Landlords
enough money though?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) We would always
welcome more money.
548. In your view, do you think that is a completely
viable project? Do you not think it is so unresourced perhaps
that it cannot be effective?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) No, I do not.
Clearly, if there was more money available, we would use it. If
you look at the Housing Plus Report we have as an independent
report on how successful or not Housing Plus has been, the report
said clearly yes, it has worked where it has been properly defined,
which is the case in everything you do, and it is certainly a
way of making sure people do actually work together and deliver
not just housing, not just bricks and mortar.
Chairman
549. You said you expected to publish this report
very shortly. How long is "very shortly"?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) The Housing Plus
Report is out, because we started that in 1995, and I think the
report was probably out early 1998.
550. You referred earlier in this answer or
set of answers to the fact that it was going to be published fairly
soon.
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) On regulating
diversity?
551. Yes.
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) We have a board
meeting on 11th April and it will be going out immediately after
that. If you would like a copy, Chairman, we will make sure we
get one to you. If it would help, we can let you have an advance
copy a few days beforehand if your timetable is such that you
would like it then.
Chairman: That would be helpful. Thank you.
Mr Blunt
552. Could we talk about areas where demand
for housing has collapsed? What is the strategy and policy of
the Corporation in those areas? What effect have you seen of the
strategy and policy there and how well are Registered Social Landlords
responding to the strategy and policy you are trying to put in
place?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) At the end of
last year there was the Sheffield Hallam Report which we commissioned
on this low demand issue, which is the point you are making. At
the moment we are running three projects—one in the North
West, just outside Manchester, and two in the North East—which
are looking at areas which have suffered blight because you have
got private landlords in the area, some of whom you cannot find,
and Registered Social Landlords who have developed in the area
but are suffering with investment being damaged potentially because
of the blight in the area. These three projects are where we have
levered-in money through the social landlords to actually buy
up that property and in those cases pull some, not all, of that
property down. But certainly as regards the whole issue of low
demand in the northern counties, it is not an easy option just
to say, "We are going to go and pull property down",
the investment is there and there are still people in the area
who need housing. So again what we are doing, working on the Hallam
Report—which is a very good report though it did not get
very good coverage in the press—is coming back to this issue
of working with the local authority, working with the housing
association, but more importantly than all of that is working
with the local community, because if they do not want to be there
there is no point in us being there. Where they want to be, we
are working with them to rectify it. Last week I was in Sunderland
in an area which had 200 units but where one of our housing associations
is working with the local authority it is being reduced from 200
to 130 but upgraded as well. So it is not just going for straightforward
demolition, it is working with the community and taking out some
of the property which may not have any life in the future, or
people do not want to live in. There is nothing more depressing,
as you will know, than seeing boarded-up houses in a street which
brings low level crime and all sorts of problems.
553. You have said you have these three pilot
schemes going, how widespread do you think this type of policy
is going to end up being?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) We do not know,
we are going to monitor it. Simon, perhaps you could add something.
(Mr Dow) It is one tool and it is a very important
tool for rebalancing supply and demand, so where there is clearly
a surplus of housing which attracts crime and vandalism which
the chairman referred to, in some circumstances we can be a small
part of readjusting that supply. Realistically speaking, we do
not believe it is our job to take down whole tracts of housing.
This is the responsibility of the local authority, to take that
strategic role. What we will do is act in specific circumstances
where we need to protect the investment in particular of RSLs
themselves.
554. Is there any role for you to play when
the private sector market has collapsed?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) That is what
we are doing in these three pilot areas. Of course it is also
looking at whether there is going to be future employment in that
area, is there anything we can do to bring in future employment.
What are the schools and the transport like? Again, it is a whole
approach. But we are working through RSLs, which is the arm we
have to work through, rightly, in that private sector landlord
area. On the other hand, one has to take into account that it
is not our job to actually do the demolition or the total regeneration
in our own right. We work with other organisations, and so we
should do, but it is not an issue which has one single answer
to it, it is actually a compendium of issues within that area
which need adjusting.
Chairman
555. But are you not actually making the situation
worse in one or two examples? It was put to us that in Birmingham
there are 3,000 empty properties and yet you are still assisting
housing associations to go on and put new houses into an area
like that. You have referred to an area in North Manchester where
you are trying to intervene in the market to buy up some of these
unwanted properties, but you are also encouraging housing associations
to new build within half a mile of one of those areas.
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) Two answers to
that, Chairman. One is that with some of those properties you
can spend what you like on them and they will never be in a fit
condition for people to live in. The second point is, wherever
we invest, it is after we have had discussions with and the blessing
of the local authority. We do not walk into any area and find
new build without an involvement from the local authority.
556. You say that with some of those properties
no one would ever want to live in them, but if they were in some
of the posher parts of London they would be regenerated very quickly,
would they not?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) Because there
is a different situation. In London you have an over-demand for
insufficient accommodation available, you have very few areas
that have got building land left available, and where they have
it is very expensive, so it is actually moving away from a crude
national housing policy to one where you have a different approach
in the South and South East from the one in the North, and I think
rightly so to meet the population in those counties.
Mrs Ellman
557. What are you doing to encourage more mixed
tenure and mixed communities in social housing?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) Just taking up
the last point about the South East and the South, the majority
of our spend now is actually through section 106 which is a local
authority requirement that an element of private sector housing
is for social housing or affordable housing. So the majority of
our spend now is going in that area. Clearly, mixed tenure is
absolutely crucial and where development applications for mixed
tenure are coming forward, we are starting to give them priority
where the local authority feels that is the right way to go. Also
we need proper mixed tenure, we do not need 20 social houses over
there in a corner or with a fence around them, we need an integrated
community. There are some good examples of that which we can let
you have but there needs to be more of it, you are absolutely
right.
558. Are there any barriers to stopping you
developing these schemes?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) No, there should
not be. I guess in the southern counties the price of land is
one. I think a social landlord would find it quite difficult to
acquire to build in parts of London and outside, although I noticed
in Farringdon Road the other morning the Soho Housing Association
are doing eleven apartments there. The only barriers are cost,
the cost of land, the cost of acquiring it and the cost of build
too, but there our cost indicators can be brought into play where
on set schemes with strategic purposes we can actually increase
the cost indicators to 130, 140 per cent, and in the rural areas
we are having increasingly to do this.
559. Does the current housing benefit system
create problems?
(Baroness Dean of Thornton-Le-Fylde) It creates lots
of problems for Resident Social Landlords. I met a group of eight
chairmen this morning. The real problem they have is not getting
housing benefit on time. That means their cash flow is affected
and it means they are paying interest on the money they have not
got because it is in the local authority. So one of the key issues
which we hope the Housing Green Paper will provide the platform
for is a good, robust discussion on that. The tax system itself
means that you have housing association estates up and down the
country where something like 90 per cent of the tenants are on
housing benefit, and that would be a barrier to mixed tenure obviously.
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