Memorandum by English Partnerships (EP)
NEW TOWNS—TRANSFER
OF ASSETS
Please provide a note to the Committee regarding
the work of the Transfer Asset Team and the progress they have
made. In addition please supply a list of transfer plans that
have been submitted with the Treasury and their progress.
Following the Committee's Report on New Towns
and the Government response in November 2002, EP has responded
with a complete change in approach, as I set out in my answer
to the Committee on 14 June (Q63). This was reflected in the very
positive adjournment debate on 27 February 2003 on the New Towns
report.
In addition to taking forward my own very positive
discussions on our investment priorities in the new towns, as
I stated in my evidence, we now have a dedicated team with responsibility
for dealing with EP's non-strategic assets and we have embarked
on a rolling programme of transfers over the next three years.
We have already agreed and transferred a schedule
of assets with Warrington Borough Council, and concluded negotiations
on a package with Halton Borough Council. These packages have
consisted of assets having community benefit (CRAs). We have also
begun discussions with Bracknell, Crawley, Sunderland and Preston.
Subject to the satisfactory conclusion of discussions with the
prospective transferees, submissions to ODPM will follow.
And looking wider than new town assets, we have
also successfully transferred two packages of assets in Liverpool
South Docks and the Wirral (ex-Merseyside UDC land) to British
Waterways.
In addition, on clawback and how to fund the
problems of new town maintenance, the Government response to the
Committee's New Town Report said "Government is not prepared
to give up clawback or sales receipts as a general principle."
It goes on ". . . in some circumstances and with the agreement
of Treasury, EP might waive clawback or transfer the right to
receive clawback to the relevant local authority".
We are continuing to work with Treasury and
ODPM on both transfer issues and clawback to develop a model on
which to base future transfers.
As I said in my evidence Treasury (and indeed
ODPM for considerably longer) have been aware of the need for
a model for such transfers for a year now. I am pleased to say
that we have recently presented our worked up proposals to the
Treasury team in April of this year, based on the Warrington model.
I hope to be able to update the Committee with
further positive progress on this issue.
COALFIELD COMMUNITIES
English Partnerships has always had a commitment
for the wider social and economic regeneration of the Coalfield
areas. The National Coalfield Programme was set up to deal with
the economic, social and environmental regeneration in the former
Coalfield Communities. The Programme was initially site led and
focused but with the additional flexibility from Government allowing
EP and its partners to invest outside the sites with an aim to
directly invest in the communities for wider social and economic
regeneration.
The recently published Government Response to
the Select Committee report outlines some of EP's work in delivering
social and economic regeneration, as did our original memorandum
of evidence to the Committee as part of their inquiry. We recognise
that there is still a great deal of work to be done and we are
approaching this through the present Business/Corporate Planning
process to identify, with key stakeholders (RDAs, Coalfields Communities
Campaign, Local Authorities) our interventions.
EP will still largely concentrate on its core
business of providing physical and social infrastructure, sites,
property, housing and well designed space but ensuring the longer
term links and planning are in place with organisations such as
the Learning and Skills Council, Small Business Service, Job Centre
Plus, Neighbourhood Renewal etc to ensure the infrastructure comes
on stream alongside skills, training and enterprise programmes
which are designed to best fit the communities they are aiming
to regenerate.
This is being done at a number of levels. At
the national level, as noted in the Government response, ODPM
and EP are in discussion with RDA chairs to clarify.
Also at the national/regional level, our Regional
Business Plans are identifying key priorities with the coalfields
being key in hose relevant regions and these will feed into the
Corporate Plan. Our work on the mapping of the low demand areas
and discussion with Regional Housing Boards will also support
wider social regeneration.
The roving team within the Coalfields Regeneration
Trust, welcomed by the earlier Select Committee and funded by
English Partnerships, charged with increasing the degree of linkage
between investment on sites and community outcomes including community
enterprise and training and is now increasing its impetus.
At the project level we will learn lessons and
apply them elsewhere from innovative schemes such as those developed
through our involvement in the Selby Coalfields Task Force. This
showed the potential additional benefit of linking the bringing
forward of sites to the activities of JobCentre Plus, Learning
Skills Council and Business Link.
It is making these links at all levels and ensuring
the support comes in at the right time and right level will be
key to ensuring the wider economic, social and environmental regeneration
of the coalfield areas.
URC MEMBERSHIP/ATTENDANCE
We undertook to provide further detail on our
membership and attendance on the Urban Regeneration Companies
in England in which we are a partner. Although the individual
Board membership has changed in a number of changes as a result
of senior staff recruitment mentioned in our evidence, the following
list shows that all representatives are at either Regional/Executive
Director level or Area Director level within EP, as follows:
| Bradford Centre Regeneration
| David Carr (Area Director—Yorkshire)
|
| Cambourne-Pool-Redruth Regeneration | David Warburton (Area Director—SE/SW)
|
| Catalyst Corby | Trevor Beattie (Corporate Strategy Director)
|
| Derby Cityscape | Dennis Hone (Regional Director—East Midlands/East England/Milton Keynes)
|
| Gloucester Heritage | Duncan Innes (Regional Director—Southern)
|
| Hull Citybuild | Trevor Beattie (Corporate Strategy Director)
|
| Leicester Regeneration Company | David Hughes (Area Director—East Midlands)
|
| Liverpool Vision | Paul Spooner (Regional Director—NW/WM)
|
| New East Manchester | Paul Spooner (Regional Director—NW/WM)
|
| Regenco (Sandwell) | Sarah Lord (Area Director—Birmingham, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire)
|
| Sheffield One | David Carr (Area Director—Yorkshire)
|
| Sunderland arc | Neil Bradbury (Regional Director—North East/Yorkshire)
|
| The New Swindon Company | Duncan Innes (Regional Director—Southern)
|
| Tees Valley Regeneration | Neil Bradbury (Regional Director—North East/Yorkshire)
|
| Walsall Regeneration Company | Sarah Lord (Area Director—Birmingham, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire)
|
| West Lakes Renaissance | Paul Spooner (Regional Director—North West/West Midlands)
|
| |
Should the above named Member not be available to attend
we make every effort to ensure that a senior level substitute
who has an understanding of the local issues is able to attend
each Board Meeting. With the exception of Trevor Beattie who has
overall responsibility for URCs as a national programme for EP
and has been on the two URC Boards named since they were created
all of the above named staff have been recruited into these senior
roles over the course of the last 12 months and only rarely do
we field a substitute."
REGIONAL HOUSING
BOARD ATTENDANCE
MEMBERSHIP
On the Committee's questioning relating to the enquiry on
the role of the Housing Corporation, we were questioned on EP's
contribution to the Regional Housing Boards (Q483).
The following list shows the EP representatives on those
Boards.
| North West | Paul Spooner (Regional Director—North West/West Midlands)
|
| West Midlands | Paul Spooner
|
| North East | Neil Bradbury (Regional Director—North East/Yorkshire)
|
| Yorkshire/Humberside | Neil Bradbury
|
| East Midlands | Peter Spingett (Area Director—Northampton) to be succeeded by Dennis Hone (Regional Director—East Midlands/East England/Milton Keynes) from July
|
| Eastern England | Dennis Hone
|
| London | Duncan Innes (Regional Director—Southern)
|
| South East | Trevor Beattie (Corporate Strategy Director)
|
| South West | David Warburton (Area Director—South East/South West)
|
| |
As for URC Boards, should the above named Member not be available
to attend we make every effort to ensure that a senior level substitute
who has an understanding of the issues is able to attend. Because
we have only recently recruited into a number of senior posts
within our London/Southern and North East teams we have not always
been able to field an EP representative for those three Boards.
Now those posts are filled that will not happen in future. As
I hope I conveyed to the Committee, we take our role on both URC
and RHBs very seriously."
PROJECT EXPENDITURE
BY NEW
TOWN
The Committee asked about our investment in each of the new
towns over the last 12 months. This is as follows:
| New Town | 2003-04 £
|
| Aycliffe | 6,106 |
| Bracknell | 289,019 |
| Basildon | 2,818,691 |
| Corby | 19,981 |
| Central Lancashire | 2,470,901
|
| Crawley | 425,370 |
| Hatfield | 1,025,608 |
| Hemel Hempstead | 209,184 |
| Harlow | 532,146 |
| Milton Keynes | 24,029,258 |
| Northampton | 10,230,381 |
| Peterborough | 1,849,547 |
| Runcorn | 2,223,749 |
| Skelmersdale | 189,154 |
| Stevenage | 1,738,811 |
| Telford | 7,432,450 |
| Welwyn Garden City | 206,785
|
| Warrington | 6,862,557 |
| Washington | 173,143 |
| 62,732,840 |
| |
|
