Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)

14 JUNE 2004

MRS MARGARET FORD AND MR DAVID HIGGINS

  Q20 Sir Paul Beresford: What are you going to with the gasometer?

  Mr Higgins: On Greenwich, it remains.

  Q21 Sir Paul Beresford: Because of English Heritage?

  Mr Higgins: It is part of the site that is integral into the design and it works quite well.

  Q22 Sir Paul Beresford: Would you have had it there unless you had to?

  Mr Higgins: That is a question that evolved way before my time on the site.

  Q23 Sir Paul Beresford: That was well ducked!

  Mrs Ford: Can I just answer that because one of the things that is interesting about English Heritage is that, in some cases like Park Hill in Sheffield that David spoke about earlier, they have been extraordinarily helpful and pragmatic around trying to get a really good quality use for Park Hill and I find it frustrating that we have that kind of relationship on the one hand and then you look at the listing of a ventilation shaft at the Blackwall Tunnel right under the curtilege of the Dome, for example, and I just do not understand it. I find that more frustrating but, to be honest, in certain other regeneration projects, we are actually finding them very, very pragmatic and helpful.

  Q24 Christine Russell: What I was going to ask you about was all these surplus NHS sites that you have recently acquired from the Department of Health. What plans do you have for them?

  Mr Higgins: The sites are in the process of a heads of term agreement between the Department of Health and our Department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. In the first week in June, we were asked by our Department to assist the Department of Health in evaluating the sites. So, the prime relationship still remains between our Department and the Department of Health but we are helping them with some of the consulting work and appraisal of those sites and the Department has also consulted with the regional development agencies to ask their advice on which sites within the portfolio they themselves may wish to become involved in.

  Q25 Christine Russell: That was going to be my next question. Obviously, some of those sites will probably be disposed of to house builders but what will the criteria be for disposing of sites to the RDAs?

  Mr Higgins: Firstly, if you look at roughly 100 sites, a reasonable portion of them, maybe 20%, are still in operational use and would not be available for redevelopment in the short term. Another reasonable proportion are significant greenfield site and have significant restrictions on them. However, there will be an immediate core of sites which will be readily available for development. So, the most important thing that we are looking at first is to overlay policy on those sites that are immediately developable by the private sector, to look at regional housing strategy, to look at planning polices and housing grant, agree what those policy objectives are, put them in the development brief for those particular sites and then take them as quickly as possible back out to the private sector to be delivered by a diverse group of private developers.

  Q26 Christine Russell: Can I present you with a conundrum and ask you how you are going to solve it. One of those sites happens to me in my constituency and there is a huge, huge need for affordable housing but my local authority is being told by the county council and Government Office North West, "You cannot build a single additional unit of accommodation in Chester." What are you going to do in that case because the housing need is there and the RDA may well be interested in acquiring that site for purposes other than housing? How are you going to solve that and at what point will you involve the local authority in discussions?

  Mrs Ford: Could I begin with that and then hand over to David. I had a meeting with all of the RDA chairs last Thursday morning to talk about this very issue and we spoke about how we would do it most effectively and, frankly, how we could get some momentum into the process because this portfolio has now been dormant for two years since the original deal tried to be done. I am quite keen to get on with it. The RDA chairs were very firmly of the view that we should do what we would do with the Coalfields Programme, which is treat it first of all like a national programme and have EP lead with advice and guidance from the RDAs on the regional economic strategies. I made it very clear that the brief I had from ODPM was that this was a key lever in trying to deliver the objectives of the sustainable communities plan and that the first call on those sites would be to look at how they could contribute to the housing agenda in those areas. There was nothing in my mind from that discussion that suggested that the RDA chairs were thinking about that portfolio for anything other than first of all for housing use. So, that is the first thing. The second thing is that, in the situation you describe, what we would be looking at would be to look at the regional housing strategies to see how these sites can contribute to that. I am not familiar with the particular example of Chester but we would want to see what that site can do there to alleviate issues of affordability and key worker housing.

  Q27 Christine Russell: How clear a steer have you had from ODPM as to a proportion—and have you been given a proportion—of the amount of affordable housing that can be put on these sites?

  Mr Higgins: We have not had a direct steer; we are still working as an adviser to the Department and it is still early days; the heads of terms are still in the process of being finalised with the Department of Health. Clearly, the objective of this major deal between the two departments was to accelerate affordable housing in the area, so that has to be a main objective. Importantly now, the Department is in the perfect position to look at that because of its role with the Housing Corporation and also its role in looking at the whole issue of planning polices.

  Q28 Christine Russell: Are there any ongoing negotiations with any other ministries as to you taking over the responsibility for their surplus land? Obviously, I am thinking in particular of the MoD?

  Mr Higgins: The Department of Health still has 100 sites and I would suggest that 16,000 hectares of land in and around major cities is probably unique in the size of that portfolio. However, we have an excellent relationship with the Ministry of Defence/Defence Estates. Our first transaction of size was the RAF Locking arrangement. We have other work that we are working with them on an advisory basis and working with the Housing Corporation in fact on some other sites they have and we are working on future sites. So, that is a very constructive open relationship where we are working to look at other sites. I doubt, in fact I am sure, that there is not a portfolio of the size of the Department of Health.

  Q29 Christine Russell: Can you share with the Committee the details of the discussions you had with the Housing Corporation to ensure that the funding will be available because it is all very well to say, "Yes, the emphasis is going to be on housing and particularly affordable housing on these sites" but then you discover that, in the region, the Housing Corporation does not have the money to fund the developments. Are the discussions over the funding going in tandem?

  Mr Higgins: Certainly we are sharing with the Housing Corporation all of our plans on these sites going forward. So, the process of housing associations applying for ADP on particular sites obviously is a separate process. Importantly, more and more Housing Corporation ADP are looking strategically at public sector intervention and, on these particular sites, it would make a lot of sense for the public sector in the form of our Department to agree policy on these sites before releasing them to the private sector.

  Q30 Christine Russell: You did not answer the question I asked earlier about the role of the local authorities in these areas and how you are going to negotiate and consult with the local authorities and what role you see the local authorities have in bringing these sites forward and I am talking about the surplus NHS land ones.

  Mr Higgins: The Government Offices have been advised and, in the same process of consultations which happened over the last few weeks and have another few weeks to go, the regional development agencies have been briefed as have the Government Offices in the regions of these issues.

  Q31 Christine Russell: What about the local authorities who, at the end of the day, will give or not give planning consent?

  Mr Higgins: Of course and, at the moment because it is still relatively discreet in terms of confidentiality and in terms of the total arrangement, the final commercial arrangements have not been finally agreed. So, when those are agreed, the local authorities . . . What is more important, when the first—

  Q32 Christine Russell: Should the local authorities not be asked, "What do you want? This land is within your area." Should they not have a say in what they want to see the land used for?

  Mr Higgins: And they will certainly and the Department will no doubt engage with them in that process.

  Q33 Mr O'Brien: In the major cities and in some of the sub-regions of the urban development agencies, urban regeneration companies have been established and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is saying that this could be a good thing and that we want to see more of them established. Does this cut across the principle and the work of English Partnerships?

  Mr Higgins: No, quite the contrary. Nationally, one of our major programmes is 16 urban regeneration companies in England. We hold national seminars and a national conference annually and we disseminate best practice. These organisations are doing exactly the same thing in each of the different regions, so that there is a lot that they can learn from each other. We are on all the boards except two and we have put application to be on those soon. We are a funder from operating funding and we invest in capital expenditure on a number of those URCs, so there is an enormous amount of links between those URCs. We were actively involved in the first three which led to the extension of that in 1999 and the recent stock-take which has just been completed I think set out the satisfactory progress that has been made on the URCs to date.

  Q34 Mr O'Brien: When did English Partnerships decide that the urban regeneration companies' development will not undermine your special status?

  Mr Higgins: Would not undermine our special status?

  Q35 Mr O'Brien: In the past, it has been stated that English Partnerships are concerned over the development of urban regenerations because it could undermine your special status.

  Mrs Ford: I do not recognise that quote; I hope it is not mine! I certainly do not recognise it and it is not our position. I think we regard them as complementary to what we do.

  Q36 Mr O'Brien: We will obviously clear that point because that is the information we have been given. As you have pointed out, you have requested a seat on all of the urban regeneration companies. Is that not stretching your resources a little too far? You are on the Housing Corporation, you are on the regional housing committees, you have a presence on the sub-regions of the regeneration bodies, the RDAs, and now you want to sit on the urban regeneration companies. Is this not going to stretch your resources?

  Mr Higgins: What it does need for us to do is to keep a very close focus on it but it has caused us in the last year in particular to reskill our organisation because rather than having a lot more people in our organisation who do individual projects, we have the capacity and the resources now of 16 organisations across the country that, when we interface with those organisations, we need to do it at a much more senior strategic level rather than actually at a doing level. So, we do not need a lot of planners or engineers every day, we need people who can sit on boards and really add value to these urban regeneration companies because remember that urban regeneration companies do not have their own statutory powers, they borrow or use their partners' power, the local authority or ourselves, and equally they have a limited budget. They seek funds from their shareholders essentially. It does mean reskilling and Margaret was referring earlier on to the significant recruitment of very senior people we had into the organisation last year.

  Q37 Mr O'Brien: So, we are looking at 16 urban regeneration companies and that could double if these are successful because the Deputy Prime Minister is saying that the programme should continue. How would you go on then if there is this extension/development?

  Mrs Ford: If there were an extension, we would simply continue to resource those as appropriate because the other reason why it is important for us to be involved in the URCs is that they are very important vehicles for English Partnerships' grant funding and, in terms of following the public pound as it were, it is important that we have senior executives on those boards who can understand how that funding is being spent and advise on that. So, we would welcome the extension of urban regeneration companies where that was deemed appropriate and we would make it a priority to resource those. We are not worried about the extension of urban regeneration companies. We think the ones that are there we have a really good and healthy relationship with and I know that most of our colleagues enjoy being involved with them, so I do not think that we would have any real concern about the numbers accelerating.

  Q38 Andrew Bennett: Do the people you have on these boards always turn up?

  Mrs Ford: I would need to go back and check the records but I would certainly hope so.

  Q39 Chairman: Trevor Beattie has said that your role in the URC should be reinforced without elaborating on that. Have you any ideas as to what that might amount to?

  Mr Higgins: Only that we have put forward to the Department that we join the remaining two URCs which we are not currently represented on. The reinforcement would apply to the whole issue of skills transfer and best practice and we are putting significant time and resources into that.


 
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