Examination of Witnesses (Questions 920
- 939)
WEDNESDAY 19 APRIL 2000
MS MOIRA
WALLACE AND
MR ANDREW
CROOK
920. Are you not prepared to say "£5,000
extra for any doctor's surgery in one of these deprived neighbourhoods"?
Are you prepared to say that?
(Ms Wallace) We are having a public debate about this.
You are part of it. There is a huge consultation exercise—
921. £5,000 for each doctor's surgery.
Is that right?
(Ms Wallace) I am talking about a debate, you are
asking for a statement. We do not pretend that we have—
Mr Gray
922. That is why you are here. This is a Select
Committee. This is not a debate, you are giving evidence to the
Select Committee, and the Chairman has properly asked you "Do
you believe that GPs should be given £5,000 extra to be in
an inner city?" This is not a debate, you are here to give
evidence.
(Ms Wallace) Fair point. Nonetheless, I think, in
common parlance—
Chairman
923. We are not going to get a yes or a no.
Is that it? You are not going to say yes or no.
(Ms Wallace) What I am saying is that we have put
forward ideas that we think have some merit. It is obvious we
think they have some merit or we would not have put them forward.
However, we are not pretending that the Unit or central Government
has all the answers, and we do want to know whether what we have
picked up from our work so far rings true with people living and
working in these communities.
Chairman: The problem is that most of what you
are saying does ring true. What we have not got is the ideas about
how much these things cost. If you are going to produce a report,
one of the logical things is not just to put recommendations in
but to try and see whether it is practical politics the amount
of money that is involved.
Mr Forsythe
924. Are local authorities not the key to sustainable
strategies for urban and neighbourhood renewal? If they are the
logical body, what additional powers should they receive to do
it?
(Ms Wallace) The ideas that we are putting forward
in the Consultation Document do foresee a big role for local authorities,
and fit with what is going through Parliament at the moment, through
the Local Government Reform Bill. In terms of powers, one of the
powers that you would be right to focus on is that of promoting
social and economic well-being, which is something that local
authorities will want to do. One of the other ideas that is in
the Bill is about using the community planning process to rationalise
some of the endless plans and partnerships that local authorities
have been asked to produce. These are practical things.
925. Many local authorities think that your
strategy with the creation of new Partnerships is by-passing them.
Do you agree with that?
(Ms Wallace) I do not agree that it is by-passing
them. I am not sure that local authorities do think that. We work
closely with Local Government Association members and they welcomed
what we produced. I do not think that is a criticism they are
making of our work, although I am prepared to be corrected on
that.
926. You disagree then?
(Ms Wallace) I disagree that we are by-passing them
and that local authorities think we are by-passing them.
927. Your report suggests that the New Commitment
to Regeneration is a potential model for Local Strategic Partnerships.
Tell us why it is so good.
(Mr Crook) Hilary Armstrong has already made some
comments on this, about the encouragement of the early results
of the Pathfinders.
928. But we want to know why you think it is
good.
(Mr Crook) I will give you two examples of why it
seems to be a promising approach. First of all, it pieces together
a strategy for the regeneration of a local area rather than a
lot of bitty initiatives. Secondly, building on that potential,
to pull some of those initiatives together behind a local and
commonly agreed strategy.
929. Why has the Government not given more support
in the past?
(Mr Crook) The Government has supported 22 Pathfinders
and has committed itself to working with them. As Hilary Armstrong
was suggesting, the National Strategy's proposals is a logical
extension of that. The Government is reviewing how it could work
with those Pathfinders, and with other partnerships using the
same sort of ideas.
930. Do you think there is going to be a change
of attitude in the future by Government?
(Ms Wallace) I think that sets up a conflict which
is not there. The Government does think it is a good idea. A lot
of the ideas in the document that we have produced build on that.
We would envisage giving it further support. The idea of Local
Strategic Partnerships, which the document suggests might get
some core funding—that would be some money to add to the
pot—suggests we are building on that.
Mr Brake
931. Mr Crook was talking about pulling things
together. Do you see any problems in bringing together your work
with that of Lord Rogers' Urban White Paper?
(Ms Wallace) I do not see problems in pulling it together
except that it is a very, very big agenda. I do not see inconsistencies
there. I think they are very complementary.
932. There may be one particular area where
there is concern and there might be a difference of opinion. The
Urban Task Force highlights problems to do with low density, bad
design and single tenure housing. Your report just touches on
that in passing. It does not seem to be an issue for you.
(Ms Wallace) I would not say it is not an issue. I
do not disagree with any of that. It is an issue. There are lots
of neighbourhoods you could point to, where that is one of the
many problems that they have had to deal with. What we have not
done is turned our National Strategy, which is long enough already,
into a compendium of everything the Government is thinking about
looking at which could be relevant. But I do accept the point.
It is relevant.
933. In terms of solutions, do you think the
approach should be one that is based on the bricks and mortar
approach, or should it be one that is based on the people approach,
or should it be a mixture of the two?
(Ms Wallace) What do you mean by the bricks and mortar
approach?
934. Bricks and mortar as in going in, renovating
a run-down housing estate, and then moving on to somewhere else.
(Ms Wallace) I think bricks and mortar are important
but never enough on their own because what is important about
housing is the people who live there and the conditions that the
housing sets up for them. I am very clear from our work that bricks
and mortar is enough-but that does not mean that bricks and mortar
are not important.
Chairman
935. Substantial housing estates in these deprived
areas, where the demand for housing both public and private is
almost non-existent: what should we do? Flatten the lot?
(Ms Wallace) I agree completely with what your last
set of witnesses were saying about this. You need to assess the
situation of what is going on locally. Is there a reasonable expectation
that this neighbourhood and all the other neighbourhoods in the
area, which are of the same catchment area, will revive? What
assumptions does that depend on and are they realistic?? If they
are realistic, fine, get on and do it. Put resources into housing
and make sure everything else supports that. If it is not realistic,
then someone has to figure out what you are going to do about
it. That is where we have tended to fall down in the past. You
do go to some areas where, particularly going round visiting several
in a city and a region, they are effectively competing for residents
and no-one is going to give up. They all hope that they are building
the estate which fills up. That is not sensible. That is why you
need to make some decisions. However, it is a very, very sensitive
subject. You have to figure out what local residents want.
936. They all want their various estates to
be revived, do they not?
(Ms Wallace) Yes, but it is wrong to suggest that
they are not capable of being involved in the big picture.
Mrs Dunwoody
937. The big picture is living somewhere which
is decent. If you say to them, "Thank you very much but on
balance we have decided that if we destroyed the whole of this
area and went for a PFI to turn it into something else it would
be better for the people concerned and the small number of you
involved have to be shifted to somewhere else," on the whole,
their view of the big picture may be quite different from yours.
Who is going to take that decision?
(Ms Wallace) You need to take it locally.
938. But you are saying that the local authorities
have not taken that in the past and we have to look at it differently.
Who would then say to the local authorities, "You have not
done a very good job on this in the past, so we are now going
to take the decision for you"?
(Ms Wallace) No-one is suggesting that that be said.
Mavis McDonald, who we just had sitting here, who has done a lot
of detailed work on this, said that you need to put this at the
forefront of local authorities and get them focusing on the issue.
You need to get local authorities to sub-regional level talking
about their different plans and problems and how they interact.
You also need regionally to be making sure that we are not just
watching too much housing being built or too much housing being
renovated with no-one thinking about where the people are going
to come from.
939. So who would take that action and who would
oversee them?
(Ms Wallace) There has to be joint working. This is
one of the things that we need to consult on. We need to find
out where people think the buck stops. It also depends on what
local residents want. One of the worst outcomes for local residents
is to live in a half-empty estate. I do not want to. I do not
think anyone round this table would. That is an estate which is
going to get very much worse.
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