Memorandum by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
(UWP 63)
THE PROPOSED URBAN WHITE PAPER
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is delighted
that the Committee is undertaking an Inquiry into what should
be contained within the Urban White Paper. We believe the issues
are of enormous importance and future urban policy will have far
reaching effects on the nation's economic competitiveness as well
as on poverty and social exclusion, rural policy and regional
policy.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is the UK's largest
research and development charity. We have funded a substantial
programme of research and development which has served to map
the complex scene behind the general trend of urban decline within
our conurbations. Our research programmes have also covered the
impacts of change on communities and infrastructure in suburban
and rural areas. We have charted the social consequences of change
in urban, suburban and rural settings, both in terms of broad
trends such as population change, employment patterns and social
interactions as well as from the perspectives of those living
in poverty and who are socially excluded.
In addition to our programme of R&D, over
the last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has spent over £6
million developing a brownfield land in inner city Leeds and Birmingham.
Our CASPAR schemes (City Centre Apartments for Single People at
Affordable Rents) combine imaginative architectural design with
the aim of encouraging single people to live within our urban
centres. Its objectives are to improve the economic base and social
mix of our cities while cutting down commuting traffic and saving
greenfield sites outside. We hope, through CASPAR, to reduce the
clear exodus from our major conurbations by making city centre
living a viable alternative for middle income, single people.
In investing in CASPAR we are hoping to persuade insurance companies
and pension funds to invest in urban regeneration by illustrating
that it is possible to make a sensible return on capital from
a new-style private rented sector.
With regard to the specific issues of interest
to the Committee, we would like to make the following submissions
of evidence. We have included a selection of Findings summarising
reports from some of the studies cited. We would be very happy
to provide members of the Committee with copies of the reports
(most of them attractively presented) if this would be helpful.
In addition, we would be very happy to facilitate presentations
to the Committee from ourselves or any of the researchers we have
commissioned and supported.
REPORT OF
THE URBAN
TASK FORCE
JRF greatly welcomed the report from Lord Rogers'
Task Force and has subsequently funded dissemination of its results.
We were glad the report emphasised the need
for targeting resources on urban regeneration, with Urban Priority
Areas obtaining special concessions; we feel strongly that local
authority powers—including compulsory purchase powers—are
needed to create the conditions for imaginative regeneration;
we can see the sense in New Urban Regeneration Companies through
which public and private partnerships can operate. We would certainly
wish to see an equalisation of VAT between new development and
rehabilitation to alter the current imbalance in incentives. We
see a role for planning at the regional, as well as city, level
in supporting the urban renaissance and see a special role for
a revived private rented sector to attract and retain single people
and others who can contribute to the economic and social life
of urban areas.
INTEGRATED URBAN
REGENERATION
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has funded a
programme of research on area regeneration totalling over £4
million since 1995. We have been looking at what works in the
regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods and a strong focus has
emerged on the role that local residents in community organisations
can play. A key finding from the programme has been that successive
urban regeneration programmes have proved largely ineffective
or unsustainable where active steps were not taken to engage and
involve the local community in both planning and implementation
processes. Much of our work in recent years has focused on processes
such as the formulation of Estate Agreements and city and regional
and community strategies.
The enclosed Foundations document, Regenerating
Neighbourhoods: Creating integrated and sustainable improvements,
sets out a comprehensive set of approaches to regeneration. A
key element is the transformation of mainstream services at the
local level. Based on the model of localised housing services
developed in the 1980s and 1990s, local involvement has broadened
out to include a range of other issues. Our research programme
includes a study of a partnership between the police and local
residents which improved the provision of police services in that
area. We have found that Estate agreements can be an effective
means of co-ordinating the provision of community policing, street
and environmental cleaning, jobs and training, leisure services,
social services, housing and a range of other services for the
estate and the neighbourhood. (Findings enclosed on Estate Agreements
and Lessons from Bell Farm.) The active role of the tenants in
developing these agreements is paramount.
A recent synthesis report by Marilyn Taylor
at the University of Brighton for the Foundation and the Social
Exclusion Unit emphasises the need for "a very clearly articulated
framework for the management of ... Cities". (Top down
meets bottom up: Neighbourhood Management forthcoming 2000,
JRF). At the city level, strong leadership and strategic thinking
are required to drive the regeneration effort and to maintain
its momentum. The Local Government Association's "New
Commitment to Regeneration" incorporates best practice
in this area through encouraging local authorities and their partners
to develop five-year strategies to tackle the regeneration of
deprived neighbourhoods.
A study by Professor Michael Parkinson comparing
the UK experience of area-based strategy development to those
in four other European cities indicates the UK is "leading,
not lagging" in designing interventions. He found much imitation
of some key principles such as creating partnerships, the greater
integration of public sector services and linking programmes to
city and regional strategies.
However, research has found that the role of
Central Government has not been a consistently constructive one—a
report by Stephen Hall and John Mawson found that "central
government departmentalism is an important cause of fragmentation
of policy at the local level". This has made if difficult
for local agencies to tackle complex unrelated issues. Government
offices have played a pivotal role in many successes that have
not been universally recognised by central government.
It is clear that Regional Development Agencies
and Government Offices for the Regions must work with the range
of other agencies and providers such as the Housing Corporation
and local authorities: they need to ensure technical assistance
and financial resources are available for development and representation
for all members of regeneration partnerships.
One model that we have explored is that of the
Social Enterprise Zone (SEZ). SEZs build on the Business Enterprise
Zone model with its facility to secure fiscal and administrative
waivers in order to free up the process of partnership. The SEZ
Findings, Social Enterprise Zone: Building Innovation into
Regeneration, indicates the key characteristics of a SEZ are:
— Licence from central government to
change rules and regulations that frustrate regeneration;
— Partnerships across public sectors
agencies and with private sector and community organisations;
— Involvement of both users and staff
in public agencies;
— Freedom and willingness to innovate;
— Community voice and participation;
. . .
— Reinvestment of savings from public
services working together in the SEZ.
We would commend the consideration of some of
the detailed work on implementing a Social Enterprise Zone within
the Canning Town Single Regeneration Budget area to closer scrutiny
by the Committee.
THE FUTURE
OF URBAN
AREAS
We have enclosed summaries of two studies which
relate to low demand—Perceptions of Low Demand for Housing
and the Reality of Housing Need and Demand by Alan Holmans
and Merron Simpson and The Problem of Low Housing Demand in
Inner City Areas by Anne Power and Katherine Mumford of the
London School of Economics. The first study gives a comprehensive
review of the population and household data in relation to reported
signs of low demand. It confirms the projections of housing need
derived from previous work. It unpicks the simplistic arguments
around a north/south divide in demand for housing, but confirms
that a large proportion of the new houses required to support
the household and population changes over the next 15 years will
be in the south of England.
The study by Anne Power et al examines low demand,
incipient abandonment and severe depopulation in urban areas.
The researchers found that abandonment is affecting all tenures
and property types. They also uncovered hundreds of projects that
are helping to hold conditions in a state of equilibrium. The
report suggests a range of policies that might build on the positive
measures already in train and concludes that there is real potential
for repopulating inner city areas. (Anne Power also played a pivotal
role in shaping the Urban Taskforce Report by Lord Rogers.)
The Jobs Gap in Britain's Cities—a
study by Ivan Turok of the University of Glasgow—charts
the decline of our major conurbations since 1981. It examines
the uneven pattern of economic and employment change across Britain
over the last two decades and explores how the workforce has responded.
The researchers conclude that national economic and social policies
need to give greater emphasis to expanding labour demand in the
cities. They argue that city-wide strategies are often left out
of the equation in efforts to develop neighbourhood-based strategies
on the one hand, (and regional policies) with the advent of Regional
Development Agencies on the other.
This adds yet another level of complexity to
the difficult task of balancing local, regional and national decision
making and planning structures. However, our programme of research
indicates that it is a complexity and set of objectives which
is absolutely necessary for effective and sustainable change in
urban environments.
CONSEQUENCES FOR
DEVELOPMENT ON
GREENFIELD SITES
Recent JRF work on trends in internal migration
within the UK indicate that the key issue is not a drift from
North to South (although there is a net gain for the Southern
regions of some 30,000 people each year). Of greater significance
is the movement of population—around 100,000 annually—out
of the conurbations to the smaller towns, suburbs and rural areas
beyond.
Pressure on greenfield sites comes principally
from those leaving our major cities. For example, while the four
Northern regions are losing some 13,500 people annually, 50,000
people are moving out of the six conurbations in these regions.
Even in the Southern regions, migration out
of London (49,000 people a year) effects the South East, South
West and Eastern regions and within those three Southern regions,
people are leaving the big cities—Portsmouth, Southampton,
Plymouth, etc.
This picture, drawn together in a forthcoming
JRF publication (edited by Richard Bate) underlines the centrality
of measures to attract and retain population for the centres of
population, in sustaining countryside and greenfield sites throughout
the country.
PLANNING TO
SUPPORT CREATIVE
URBAN DESIGNS
Our experience in developing our CASPAR projects
leads us to the conclusion that if planning officials and local
authority Counsellors work positively with developers as part
of a strategy to revitalise city centres through improved social
and economic mixes, the planning system can work very effectively.
Our experience is that the system is not inherently flawed.
We are also convinced of the value of high quality
design in attracting those with economic choice to live in city
centres. We have engaged award-winning architects and attribute
part of the success of CASPAR to the "design-led" approach.
(See CASPAR leaflet).
SUSTAINABLE SUBURBAN
AREAS
The Foundation commissioned Michael Gwilliam
and researchers from the Civil Trust to examine recent research
into suburban Britain to reveal the current condition of our suburbs
(See Sustainable Suburbs Findings). The research found
evidence of significant deterioration of community facilities
and areas for social interaction, as well as inflexible and inappropriate
housing which does not reflect current use and priorities.
The report concludes that a comprehensive strategy
covering land use, public and private transport, parking and redevelopment
is required to effect appropriate interventions in suburban areas—just
as it is in most urban areas.
HISTORIC PARKS
AND BUILDINGS
One part of our urban regeneration programme
was an examination of Neighbourhood Images in Teeside: Regeneration
or Decline? by Martin Wood and Clive Vamplew. This involved
in-depth qualitative research with community activities and non-active
residents. An unexpected conclusion was the strength of feeling
over this resulted in a distinct loss of pride resulting from
the deterioration of local landmark buildings. The trend of closure
and neglect in the neighbourhood was interpreted by local residents
as a clear sign that the area was in terminal decline.
Three other linked studies in the series (Neighbourhood
Images Findings enclosed) emphasise that the physical environment
is important to local people and vital to community morale and
social interaction. The maintenance of such buildings was far
from being an optional extra to regeneration and was very much
perceived as a central concern.
FOCUS OF
THE GOVERNMENT
WHITE PAPER
Undoubtedly, the Urban White Paper will have
an impact on a range of initiatives intended to deliver urban
regeneration: these include the New Deal for Communities, the
LGA's New Commitment to Regeneration, the future of Single Regeneration
Budget funding, the various Action Zones and the Community Planning
Process.
To consider these issues the JRF organised a
Cities Summit in Manchester in June 1999, attended by the Minister
for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning, Richard Caborn, with
the leaders and Chief Executives of a number of metropolitan authorities,
as well as a range of regeneration experts.
It is clear that even when there is a commitment
to co-ordination and planning in a locality as well as clear ideas
on how to tackle urban problems, there are difficulties in terms
of translating knowledge into action. Understanding of what works
is insufficiently shared and there are real difficulties in transferring
practice from one locality to another. The summit concluded that
Government needs to take action to ensure that:
— there is a readily accessible knowledge
base which puts policy makers and practitioners in touch with
good practice;
— there is resourcing for a range of
networks that encourage information—sharing and transfer
of practice; and
— there is access to intermediaries
and other bodies with relevant expertise and technical support.
(The notes of the meeting are enclosed.)
The contents of the White Paper need to provide
both the vision for urban renewal alongside suggestions of practical
mechanisms available for helping local authorities and other agencies
to act upon the proposals for policy and practice change.
CONCLUSIONS
We have drawn out some key points from our many
research reports on the themes of relevance to the Committee's
Inquiry:
First, so many studies confirm the importance
of involving local communities extensively in all the decision-making
processes surrounding each neighbourhood. Without this emphasis
on engaging local people and supporting their aspirations so that
change is "owned" by the community itself, it is improbable
that regeneration expenditure will have sustainable results. We
hope the Urban White Paper will look positively at the ideas emerging
from the Social Exclusion Unit (with which we have been closely
involved) for Neighbourhood Management, covering not just service
provision from a local base but real engagement of the community
itself in determining priorities and participating in the decision-making
processes;
There is much talk of the need for "joined-up,
holistic" working between central government departments,
local government departments, regional and sub-regional agencies.
The challenge to the government in constructing its White Paper
proposals is to find real mechanisms for enabling agencies and
communities to navigate the complexities in a way which is flexible
and responsive to local needs but still effective and based on
what works.
Lastly, the role of Central Government statements
of policy such as the Urban White Paper as frameworks for co-ordinating
wide-ranging action is clear. It is vital that the Urban White
Paper forms the policy foundation on which central government
policy can be built—now and in the future—which draws
together proposals for democratic and neighbourhood renewal, regional
policy and planning and service delivery.
January 2000
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