APPENDIX 1
EXAMPLES OF REGENERATION SITES APPROVED UNDER
PIP BUT UNLIKELY TO BE APPROVED UNDER THE CURRENT FIVE REPLACEMENT
SCHEMES
The following three projects which were approved
in a northern urban local authority area before the Partnership
Investment Programme (PIP) was outlawed in December 1999, and
are now being implemented. All three include derelict listed buildings.
Project A will provide 21 integrated live-work
units, the development cost was £1,900,000 and the end-value
£1,100,000; the gap of £800,000 (42 per cent of cost)
was met from the European Union's Urban Pilot Project, the Single
Regeneration Budget (SRB), and English Partnerships' PIP.
Project B will create 17 apartments, 8,000 sq
ft of offices and three restaurant/shop units. The cost is £2,950,000,
the end value £2,500,000 and the gap £450,000 (15 per
cent of cost). Grant is being met by SRB and English Heritage
through a Conservation Area Partnership (CAP).
Project C will result in eight apartments, and
5,500 sq ft of offices. The gap between cost (£720,000) and
end value (490,000), is £230,000 (32 per cent of cost) and
is being funded by SRB, CAP and the Council.
It is difficult to see how projects like the
three described above could have taken place under the five new,
EU approved, land and property regeneration schemes, for the following
reasons:
(a) All three include an element of housing,
which is ineligible under the new regime. It is very disappointing
that housing is now ruled out, given the emphasis in the Urban
White Paper and national planning guidance on the re-use of brownfield
land and buildings, mixed-use development, and encouraging more
people to live in towns and cities;
(b) For only one of the projects, B, is the
gap within the limit of 15 per cent of project cost, that applies
under the new arrangements in Objective 2 areas. More derelict
properties, with higher abnormal development costs (of the type
of projects A and C) could not be made viable at the 15 per cent
limit;
(c) English Partnerships' funds for property
investment have passed to the Regional Development Agencies, and
in this particular area the RDAs priorities lie generally outside
this urban area and towards the scale of project that will have
a regional, rather than local impact. Thus, the RDA in question
is unlikely to fund schemes like projects A, B and C that nevertheless
are very important in meeting the needs of the local economy,
community and environment;
(d) The SRB programmes which have helped
to meet those local needs in this particular area are now coming
to an end;
(e) The CAP in respect of historic buildings
has also ended, and has been superceded by the Townscape Heritage
Initiative (THI), but there is some evidence that this might now
be considered to constitute "state aid" (Regeneration
and Renewal, 11 January 2002, page 1);
(f) The area in question is now in part an
Objective 2 area and partly a transitional Objective 2 area, under
the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Only eligible public
bodies can access the funds for employment—generating elements
(not housing); grants to private developers are ruled out, so
private schemes can only be assisted in respect of off-site works,
not the development of the sites and buildings themselves. With
ERDF grant of no more than 40 per cent, the Council does not have
the 60 per cent match funds required to implement property developments
itself.
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