Memorandum by R J B Morris (NT 11)
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 This submission is written in response
to the personal invitation to submit a memorandum to the House
of Commons Urban Affairs Sub-Committee. It is offered on a personal
basis only and is not to be understood as necessarily representing
the views of Northampton Borough Council or anyone else.
1.2 The writer is a solicitor with 34 years'
local government experience, over 20 of which have been as a Chief
Executive at the City of Durham (1981-86) and at Northampton (since
1986). I was President of the Society of Local Authority Chief
Executives in 1995-96.
2. BACKGROUND
2.1 This submission is primarily concerned
with the aftermath of new town development, and the consequences
for a town like Northampton whose growth since the 1960s has been
directed or greatly influenced by Government-directed new town
investment.
2.2 Northampton during the 1960s was a county
borough with a municipal history going back to the 12th century
and a steadily growing population of just over 100,000. There
had been substantial investment under the Town Development Act
1952 around Daventry to accommodate Birmingham overspill, but
formal new town designation of this kind was of course different
altogether for the predominately rural county with a number of
market towns. Along with Corby, where quite different economic
circumstances applied centred on the steel works, Northampton
became the focus for sustained and directed growth until the New
Town Development Corporation was wound up in 1985.
2.3 By this date the population was approximately
165,000, having been augmented by at least a third during 25 years
of growth. The formal arrangements in Northampton had some unusual
characteristics in that the Borough and the Development Corporation
shared some key appointments in the legal and land development
fields—something which no doubt would be unacceptable today,
but which at the time gave valuable synergy and collaboration
between the two public bodies (the area of the County Borough
was substantially augmented in 1974 with the addition of the Northampton
Rural District Council area, but this still amounted only to a
total of just under 20,000 acres).
2.4 Unusually also, the development of the
existing town was largely carried out in two main areas, with
the southern district comprising private housing and the eastern
district public housing. In the last deal of its kind, 5,000 or
so houses were transferred by the Northampton Development Corporation
to the Borough Council's housing stock in 1985, and the Borough
took over the debt involved.
2.5 Large tracts of development land remained
at this time, but they were largely not transferred to the Borough
Council, being retained by central government through the medium
of the Commission for the New Towns. Although possessed of considerable
statutory powers, the CNT thereby became in effect another developer
in the growth boom of the late 1980s. At the height of this, a
new member was added to the town's population every two hours,
and the population, together with jobs and business floor space
similarly, grew rapidly.
2.6 By this time the M1 had become the pressured
national artery that we now recognise, while Northampton's central
position was enhanced by the building of the A45 and the A14.
In consequence the town continues to grow today and in round terms
still has less than 20,000 acres but contains some 200,000 people,
around a third of a million square feet of office space and over
one and a third million square feet of factory space.
3. CURRENT ISSUES
3.1 The foregoing paragraphs have been set
out to explain in brief how the essentially historic town of Northampton
has come to be the way it is today—by a large margin the
highest populated shire district council in England, with substantial
continuing growth influenced but not dominated by the South East,
and with a shortage of resources and degree of social and economic
deprivation which surprises those familiar only with its leafier
image.
3.2 This degree of deprivation was recognised
by Government when almost £10 million was granted under the
first year of the Single Regeneration Budget in the mid 1990s
for a series of land reclamation and social investment measures.
After seven years, that SRB programme formally comes to an end
on the 31 March 2002. The Borough similarly now wishes to be proactive
in working with English Partnerships and others to regenerate
other areas of the town similarly in need of investment and infrastructure—regeneration
is one of the Council's highest priorities.
3.3 In the 1980s when the Northampton Development
Corporation assets were distributed, it was the underlying principle
that the rising values and further development potential had,
as successive governments had intended, been created by a mix
of investment and the success of the town in general using its
opportunities to grow and prosper. Over recent years, however,
that growth has enured to the Commission and latterly to English
Partnerships, with relatively little recycling to the direct benefit
of the local economy. Although the motivation is not the same
as for a private developer, in some respects English Partnerships,
as the current public agency, is seen as one more developer taking
extensive land sale profits and development benefits away from
the town whose market circumstances (particularly now that it
is 17 years since the New Town Development Corporation was wound
up) they largely created.
3.4 During the course of the last few years
the Borough Council has been experiencing extensive problems with
regard to the layout of former housing estates constructed by
the Northampton Development Corporation in the 1970s, and has
spent a considerable amount of money on certain estates in order
to reduce the impact of crime and disorder. It is felt appropriate
that in these particular instances English Partnerships could
have a greater role to play in helping to regenerate and rejuvenate
some of those older housing estates in partnership with the Borough
Council.
3.5 As the foregoing paragraphs have sought
to explain, there was a significant partnership between the Borough
Council and the Development Corporation in undertaking the expansion
and as a result the Borough Council itself undertook many major
capital projects during the period of expansion. It is therefore
felt appropriate that all or part of the proceeds from sales of
land and property held by English Partnerships should be re-invested
in the town in order to provide better facilities and improved
infrastructure to the various transport links including the need
for better public transport.
3.6 Although as already stated the Borough
Council did acquire some of the former assets of the Northampton
Development Corporation on its demise in 1985, large areas of
land were subject to clawback requirements. Effectively this means
that at the present time the Borough Council only obtains about
one-third of the value of any of these sites on any sale whereas
English Partnerships would secure approximately two-thirds of
the receipts. As a result it does not encourage the Borough Council
to consider any disposals at the present time, and it is felt
that there would better opportunities for selling such land (in
parallel with other developments currently taking place) if the
clawback requirement could be reviewed to give a more equitable
share of the proceeds of the sale.
3.7 English Partnerships still own areas
of employment land within Northampton, and it is felt appropriate
that there should be joint marketing campaigns between English
Partnerships and Northampton Borough Council (in conjunction with
owners of other commercial areas) to assist in the promotion of
the town and encourage further inward investment for the benefit
of the town. To some extent this work has already started in recent
months, but it is considered that there should be a formal basis
upon which such joint promotion should take place.
3.8 The democratic structures of local authorities
such as Northampton Borough Council allow them to be responsive
to the needs of the community, and it is therefore felt appropriate
that there should be greater opportunity for consultation and
co-operation arrangements and more engagement on local issues
which could involve a formal structure of partnership. Upon the
demise of the Development Corporation in 1985, there were regular
consultations between officers and Members of the Borough Council,
and officers of the Commission for the New towns, but this tended
to slow during the 1990s and there has been no formal structure
of consultations during the course of the last five years. Such
consultation (now being restarted on a more regular basis) ensures
a more harmonious working relationship between the two authorities,
to ensure that the strategies of the local authority are fully
acknowledged by English Partnerships and vice versa.
4. CONCLUSION
4.1 Northampton has welcomed and taken part
in the opportunity to respond to the Government's review of English
Partnerships. The community related assets package negotiated
at the time of the winding up of the Development Corporation in
1995 recognised the then need for a balancing exercise, so that
although much development land was retained some assets did come
to the Council to balance the extra burdens placed on the Borough
as a result of the then existing development.
4.2 It is considered that this philosophy
should be carried forward in respect of the further major developments
on the fringe of the town which have subsequently taken place,
and those which remain still inchoate. The view is taken that
residual assets should now be devolved to the Council as the relevant
new town local authority, given not only the local growth pressures
but the pivotal role of the Council in economic and social development
within its boundaries and Northamptonshire as a whole.
4.3 Such assets would augment existing resources
and provide further local leverage to form any local development
partnerships or companies to manage further growth, and to recognise
the place of local democracy within the future management and
control of such land.
4.4 To conclude, the Council is already
actively pursuing major regeneration proposals and, with the assistance
of consultants where appropriate, has well established and well
developed skills in marketing and land disposal, and is of a size
sufficient to provide the relevant structure and experience directly
to benefit its council tax payers and the business community at
large by such recognition and transfer of assets.
4.5 It is recognised that this Memorandum
deals but with one aspect of the New Town legacy, but it is an
important one. It is ironic that the partnership between Northampton
Borough Council and the Northampton Development Corporation of
the 1970s and 1980s is now succeeded— in this era of partnership
working—by a situation in which the NDC successor body no
longer has the same direct formal commitment to invest and recycle
the products of investment into the Borough areas, and that as
costs have risen dramatically so have access to capital and revenue
resources directly available to the Borough declined in relative
terms.
4.6 Northampton does not argue for special
treatment—the taxpayers in general are entitled to some
return for general national investment—but we do argue that
a way should be found of requiring that wealth and potential created
locally should be required to be recycled locally.
I hope that the foregoing paragraphs are helpful,
and I should be willing to elaborate on them if required.
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