Memorandum by SOLACE (UWP 58)
THE PROPOSED URBAN WHITE PAPER
INTRODUCTION
The new Millennium serves as a symbol for change
in our society and it is significant that within a climate of
national renewal and modernisation, Government will this year
produce its first major urban policy statement since 1978. There
are many challenges to face and opportunities to grasp in finding
new ways of tackling urban problems that, despite the best of
intentions over the years, still remain with us. In line with
the symbolism represented by the new Millennium, the proposed
urban white paper needs to be bold and innovative and needs to
cultivate a broad appetite for change amongst the various stakeholders
anxious for an urban renaissance.
Local government stands as one of the key stakeholders
in urban change. SOLACE represents the professional interests
of senior managers in local government and is keen to promote
what it regards as good practice in urban policy. Consequently
this document outlines the challenges to which we believe the
Urban White Paper must give priority.
In broad terms, the White Paper must provide
the necessary framework for proper sustainable development—addressing
economic, social and environmental well being simultaneously and
with equal vigour. More specifically, the key challenges are about
building the infrastructure necessary to create:
— A sustainable urban economy built
on competitiveness and equality of opportunity, where inequality
and discrimination are not tolerated and where talent is recognised
and maximised.
— A climate of social inclusion within
which new forms of governance cultivate citizen involvement in
delivering the urban agenda, and where each and every stakeholder
receives clear and explicit policy messages concerning how they
can contribute.
— A quality physical urban environment
able to stem the tide of migration from urban areas, stopping
encroachment of the countryside and attracting people back to
urban and inner-city areas.
Public surveys repeatedly show that community
safety, quality education and health provision, housing choice
and employment opportunities are priority issues for the public.
The government must ensure that these issues are to the fore in
its urban policies and that structures are in place to promote
their full integration.
CREATING COMPETITIVE
URBAN ECONOMIES
In order to prosper, urban areas require a sound
employment base providing ample job and training opportunities
for local people as well as ongoing investment in sustainable
economic growth. In addition, people need good quality housing
in relatively close proximity to their work, or at least effective
transport facilities that minimise their journey to work. These
factors reflect the core recommendations of the Urban Task Force
by encouraging the development of housing, industry and infrastructure
in urban areas and restricting land release in rural areas.
A national agenda for urban renewal cannot be
achieved unless urban policy is aligned to a national economic
strategy that provides a greater sense of overall direction and
sense of identity as well as quite powerful messages about common
national purpose. For whilst certain urban areas experience a
concentration of investment and growth, others suffer from disinvestment
and a chronic underemployment of resources. National prosperity
and competitiveness therefore depend upon a more balanced approach
to spreading investment between our urban areas and by implication,
our major cities.
One crucial factor in promoting such an approach
comes from economic policies which recognise, support and nurture
business clustering. The notion of clustering has been stressed
in the Competitiveness White Paper and encourages companies serving
a particular industry base (or economic growth area) to locate
in close proximity to each other, taking advantage of reduced
production costs, a particular skills base or research and education
facilities. Clusters might be forged within recreation and tourism,
manufacturing or technology, financial or retailing, or in some
instances, multiple bases may exist.
It is our view that national Urban Policy should
aim to explicitly identify and nurture distinctive clusters encouraging
each urban area to produce a long term (10-15 years) strategy
proposing cluster development and its viability within a national
(and international) context. These of course should be intrinsically
linked to each Regional Economic Strategy. In aiding this process,
national policy should aim to create more major facilities able
to support cluster industries and ensure a more even distribution
across the country. Such facilities would include public R&D,
national cultural and leisure facilities, centres of excellence
(in architecture, for example), rail and airport infrastructure.
In many urban areas resources such as local
labour or local skills are either severely underdeveloped or underemployed
and it is fundamentally important for both economic success and
social inclusion that these issues be addressed. Programmes such
as New Deal create sustainable solutions to social exclusion because
they increase people's access to jobs within local labour markets.
They also help to create additional demand for labour made more
attractive by work experience and skills development thus attracting
new investment and jobs to an area because it is perceived to
possess a high skills base. They also release resources otherwise
tied up in long term Benefit payments.
Some further suggestions for the White Paper:
— Support the expansion of small to
medium enterprises (SMEs) and ensure that experiments in community
economic development (which enhance the social economy) have full
mainstream recognition and support.
— To further supplement local competitiveness
and social inclusion, people need access to good quality education
and to lifelong learning opportunities. This is advocated in the
Competitiveness White Paper and is a prerequisite of a knowledge-based
economy.
— There is an urgent need to increase
dramatically the levels of capital investment in urban areas—especially
if suggested CPO powers are to be productive. Some of this investment
must come from the public sector, (recognising as well that some
revenue resources would be needed to maintain over time those
capital investments).
CREATING SOCIAL
INCLUSION
The urban policy agenda includes tackling poverty
and the debilitating problems that it creates. The White Paper
must ensure that public services such as education, housing, health,
community care, leisure facilities, environmental enhancements
and community safety are effective and able to promote social
inclusion.
Service quality should aspire to Best Value
but it would also specify democratic interactions between service
providers and the receiving public. Service delivery must strive
to create opportunities for "co-production" and partnerships
with service recipients, turning "exclusion" into "inclusion".
Participation and co-production and fundamental
to building social capital (the ability or capacity of communities
to problem solve and the establishment of trust, credibility and
co-operation between urban stakeholders) and sustainable communities.
The Urban White Paper must therefore fully endorse initiatives
which lead to co-production. These initiatives must be encouraged
within agencies and levels of governance as well as between agencies
and levels of governance. We would expect the White Paper to help
identify sustainable participation processes and explicitly earmark
the necessary resources.
Urban centres are places of great cultural diversity
making them vibrant and exciting thus enriching urban life. We
would expect the White Paper to celebrate and support this diversity.
One way in which this could be done would be to utilise the economic
potential that such diversity could bring to certain urban areas.
If it is to be effective the Urban White Paper
must set the ground rules for partnership. It must provide clear
and explicit statements indicating the expectations that government
may have of the relevant stakeholders in urban policy and clear
indications of what powers will need to apply if those expectations
are to be fulfilled. Representing some local authority stakeholders,
for example, SOLACE would expect clear messages from the Government
on how local government can input to national policies. But we
would stress that these same clear messages must also be conveyed
to the other players within the statutory, voluntary and private
sectors, as well as the community generally.
We would expect the Government to clarify the
powers and responsibilities of the varying levels of urban governance
and the inter-relationships between them. We would expect support
for the principle that local urban areas are different, experiencing
different challenges and opportunities and that the autonomy of
local partnerships is essential. The White Paper faces a difficult
challenge here because it must avoid prescriptive, blanket solutions,
yet at the same time ensure that urban policy worked to a national
context.
The Paper should show how leadership and resources
might be promoted at each governance level and how intervention
can be rationalised. The Government should as an example to others,
promote coherence within its various action zones and area initiatives
as well as joined up working between its various departments.
It should give full commitment to enabling, preserving and actively
participating in local partnerships.
This could be facilitated by the idea of a contract
approach between the Government and partners with mainstream public
funds supporting the contract (and this possibly levering in private
sector resources). This would bring into play the possibility
of public service level agreements to ensure that participating
agencies operated to a coherent action plan and were to meet their
obligations.
Generally speaking, the Government is to be
congratulated on its commitment to improving urban areas through
better working between services. The Crime and Disorder Strategy
and the Health Improvement Programme are two key examples. However,
on the basis of our experience in such programmes there still
remain some fundamental issues concerning the flow of resources
for joint working which need resolution.
Some further suggestions for the White Paper:
— Mixed tenure of housing is essential
for building sustainable cohesive communities. Past housing policies
have tended to increase social polarisation and to concentrate
disadvantage. New housing policies and experiments are reversing
these tendencies and need adjustment and reinforcement in the
White Paper. Significant lessons can also be learnt from schemes
promoting tenant participation and more local management.
This Spring, the SEU produces its strategy for
Neighbourhood Renewal and a renewed emphasis on local neighbourhood
management of services is expected. Our crucial message here is
the Government must avoid competitive bidding for resources between
neighbourhoods. Whilst there is considerable value in a neighbourhood
focus, the distribution of potential resources must be done within
the context of the above observations and wider community planning.
— Current short time scales in regeneration
programmes preclude any early developmental work with communities
and permit only superficial community participation and capacity
building. They also mean inadequate resources to fully address
the scale of many issues. They should be extended.
— Enable a review of the Benefits system
ensuring especially that those who cannot work because of age,
infirmity or caring responsibilities receive a just and fair share
of increased prosperity and to free-up resources for local job
opportunities.
— Particularly focused and resourced
long-term "catching-up" investment is needed in the
schools of deprived areas in order to raise relative standards
to the rest of the country. The same follows for a number of other
public services.
CREATING A
QUALITY ENVIRONMENT
A high quality physical fabric is crucial if
urban areas are to prosper. People require a clean and safe environment
that reflects prosperity and is at the same time sustainable.
They require good quality and affordable housing, accessible to
local employment opportunities and services and of mixed tenure.
As suggested in the previous section, housing developments of
mixed tenure are important because they promote social cohesion
and hence improve the quality and attractiveness of the urban
environment.
Housing provision faces three very crucial issues
in need of resolution. First, in London and the south-east housing
prices are rising and demand is high but in many other urban centres—particularly
in the industrial north—house prices are low and exacerbated
by inner city "abandonment". Second, a constant demand
for private housing development in greenfield sites against a
Government desire to utilise brownfield sites in urban or inner-city
areas. Third, the need for increased investment in run-down older
private housing and social housing.
An effective and integrated transport system
is critical. Accessibility to employment and leisure is fundamental
and residents and the workforce (as well as visitors) need to
be able to move about easily and safely. Public transport needs
to be greatly enhanced yet is reeling from years of public disinvestment
and de-regulation. Public belief in the necessity of private car
use is still very strong and along with efficient transport routes,
considered vital for economic growth and enhancing competitiveness.
Alternatively, for environmental and health reasons, there are
increasing calls to introduce financial disincentives to limit
private car use. Given the high levels of investment required,
there appears to be considerable uncertainty on how to proceed
in tackling these basic tensions and it is therefore hoped that
the Urban White Paper may begin to show the way.
Holding all these elements together requires
an effective system of land use planning able to respond with
flexibility to the present and future needs of urban areas and
the White Paper needs to address this. The current statutory planning
system needs updating if improvements in the physical fabric of
urban areas are to make headway. Its current legislative and cultural
ethos is one of regulation and control with little promotion of
quality, vision and innovation. Many of the recommendations of
the Urban Task Force address this particular issue.
Some further suggestions for the White Paper:
— Facilitate funding packages (including
the Private Finance Initiative) to upgrade existing private and
social housing.
— Facilitate certain fiscal measures
to encourage greater private sector involvement, for example,
the introduction of a Business Improvement District (BIDs) regime,
emulating the successful examples in the US.
— Encourage brownfield redevelopment
through financial and legislative mechanisms and encourage wider
tenure on housing developments on both brownfield and greenfield
sites.
— Identify precisely how more affluent
residents may be attracted into new mixed inner-city or urban
housing developments.
— Identify how cycling and walking
might be encouraged in preference to car use.
URBAN TASK
FORCE: OUR
PRIORITY RECOMMENDATIONS
After due consideration, the Urban Task Force
has made 105 recommendations aimed at creating an Urban Renaissance.
From our point of view the key message must be about releasing
derelict or underutilised urban land for modern housing, industrial
and other developments capable of attracting people to live and
work in quality and sustainable urban environments. Our priority
recommendations are therefore:
— New regeneration vehicles such as
Regeneration and Housing companies able to secure private sector
investment to refurbish deteriorating and low-value private housing
are desperately needed:
— The range of proposals aimed at speeding
up the reuse of vacant land and buildings and counteracting the
power of unhelpful landlords are particularly welcome. This includes
stronger CPO powers for local authorities.
— Strengthening the New Commitment
to Regeneration programme by combining Government departments'
spending powers and by the Government signing up to local strategies.
— Securing public benefit from taxing
development values and the potential of planning gain under S106.
An example might include contributions to a Development Trust's
assets base.
— The establishment of a "Renaissance
Fund" supporting neighbourhood and community involvement
in the restoration of derelict land and buildings.
— Measures to strengthen regional planning
guidance.
CONCLUSION
An array of urban initiatives will only go so
far in raising the quality of life for local disadvantaged communities
and cannot resolve many of the problems arising from wider structural
factors. These include the impact of globalisation on income distribution,
employment and competitiveness, the impact of regional housing
and labour markets on the spatial distribution of social exclusion,
and the difficulties of raising the motivation of young people
without an increase in the demand for labour. These are big, intractable
issues that can only be tackled by national policies such as more
effective income distribution programmes and the stimulation of
competitiveness.
Overall, the Urban White Paper must at least
do two things. It must acknowledge and reflect the bigger national
picture and from a local government standpoint, it must illustrate
how local government can more explicitly contribute to national
policies in order to make them more effective.
Sir Michael Lyons
Chairman of the SOLACE Urban Policy Panel
January 2000
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