Memorandum by English Partnerships (EP)
(EMP 46)
English Partnerships welcomes the opportunity
to contribute to the Committee's enquiry. This memorandum comprises
general background information, followed by contributions to the
areas to be addressed by the Committee that are of particular
relevance for English Partnerships.
1. CONTEXT
1.1 English Partnerships is the national
regeneration agency, helping the Government to support high quality
sustainable growth in England. English Partnerships' role is summarised
as follows:
— Developing its own portfolio of strategic
projects.
— Acting as the Government's specialist
advisor on brownfield land.
— Making sure that surplus Government
land is used to support wider Government objectives, especially
the implementation of the Sustainable Communities Plan.
— Helping to create communities where
people can afford to live and where people want to live.
— Supporting the urban renaissance
by improving the quality of our towns and cities (eg through support
of URCs and town centre regeneration).
1.2 English Partnerships is represented
on both the Regional Housing Boards and the Pathfinder Partnership
Boards.
1.3 In addition English Partnerships manages
the National Coalfields Programme working closely with the Regional
Development Agencies, the Housing Corporation, the Coalfield Communities
Campaign, Coalfields Regeneration Trust and other key local partners
to regenerate areas that often suffer from significant problems
of low demand.
2. EP INVOLVEMENT
IN INITIATIVES
PROPOSED AND
UNDERWAY IN
HOUSING MARKET
RENEWAL PATHFINDER
AREAS
2.1 The Sustainable Communities Plan confirmed
that EP would be a key partner in each of the nine HMR Pathfinder
areas. We have therefore played an important and proactive role
in the development of the regeneration partnerships and strategies
within each Pathfinder area. Our precise role and approach has
varied in line with the differing nature of, and challenges faced
by, each of the Boards One important aspect of this—before
the initial £500 million dedicated funding line had been
confirmed by ODPM and where project proposals were already sufficiently
advanced—was to fund the acquisition by local authorities
of run-down sites and properties within the Pathfinder areas.
We have also provided, working closely with CABE, best practice
expertise to the Pathfinders on demolition and remediation, governance
arrangements, procurement advice and, in particular input on development
of masterplans/development frameworks, for instance through the
recently completed "Enquiry by design" exercise in Nelson
in East Lancashire.
2.2 EP has carried out an enabling role
in many pathfinders, before and immediately after the approval
of the prospectuses. We have been careful not to displace the
ODPM funded activity and have therefore concentrated on strategic
acquisitions and demolitions and feasibility work to prepare the
ground for future Pathfinder programmes.
2.3 Given its strategic, early-stage role,
EP is expecting its funding contribution in Pathfinder areas to
peak during this financial year (at around £30 million on
programmes and projects across the nine areas for 2004-05) although
this figure may change as project negotiations and decisions progress
through the final quarter of the year. This follows expenditure
of £21.8 million in 2003-04.
2.4 With all but Hull and East Riding's
(Gateway) fund confirmed up to March 2006 from the initial £500
million pot, and with significant additional dedicated resources
promised from the Spending Review 2004, EP's funding for the delivery
of projects will reduce in future years. EP's future expenditure
is likely to focus more on those enabling functions described
earlier and a limited number of strategic interventions as exemplar
projects rather than larger scale land assembly/demolition and
direct delivery functions.
2.5 The figures illustrate we have provided
a significant investment in Pathfinders, taking a role in Liverpool/Sefton,
Manchester-Salford and Sheffield where project action plans were
already well advanced, particularly where we already have a role
in adding value through strategic investment sites (Edge Lane,
Liverpool) or through established or embryonic Urban Regeneration
Companies and the Millennium Communities Programme.
3. AVAILABILITY
OF RESOURCES
OUTSIDE THE
PATHFINDER AREAS
AND THE
DEVELOPMENT OF
STRATEGIES TO
DEAL WITH
WEAK HOUSING
MARKETS
3.1 Members may recall that English Partnerships,
on behalf of ODPM, undertook an exercise to map the scale of the
problems associated with low demand and abandonment within coalfield
communities outside of the Pathfinder areas. This exercise, completed
in November 2003, identified 56 hotspot areas within 15 local
authorities. Each of the hotspots has distinct physical characteristics,
community and market context. These include over-supply of housing
type, unfitness, anti-social behaviour and non-performing private
sector landlords (following large scale transferral of housing
stock from the Coal Board in the 1980s).
3.2 The Government's response to the House
of Commons Select Committee hearing on the coalfields in June
2004 recommended that more needs to be done to tackle housing
problems in the Coalfields and that increased flexibility in English
Partnerships' programme needs to be turned to housing needs.
3.3 The new flexibility EP has been allowed
in the Coalfields Programme is limited by the funds available
and can only be expected to support action on low demand housing
areas through indirect activity as an extension to existing coalfields
site projects in the programme. An example of this is where our
investment in Frickley Colliery in Yorkshire can play an important
part in repositioning South Elmsall and South Kirkby as a location
for private investment.
3.4 EP is discussing with ODPM how assistance
might best be provided to housing market renewal projects within
those coalfield areas that are not already benefiting from Housing
Market Renewal Pathfinder monies or could not otherwise be assisted
through other programmes.
4. THE NATIONAL
COALFIELDS PROGRAMME
IS ALREADY
DELIVERING HOUSING
CHANGE IN
SOME AREAS,
AS PART
OF ITS
8,000 NEW HOMES
TARGET TO
BE ACHIEVED
OVER THE
NEXT DECADE,
FOR EXAMPLE,
EP HAS APPROVED
FUNDING FOR:
— 300 new units at Silverdale Colliery
in Newcastle-under-Lyme, North Staffordshire with the North Staffs
Partnership.
— 400 new homes at Bickershaw Colliery
in Wigan.
— 340 houses at the former Lampton
Coke works site in Sunderland.
3.5 EP is able to influence the timing of
investment in these areas to best suit the wider Pathfinder strategies.
3.6 EP has also "bent its mainstream
programme" to housing needs in the coalfields areas. For
example, EP has:
— set up Meden Valley Making Places
SPV in Bolsover and Mansfield with local authorities and EMDA
to support housing renewal alongside our joint commitment to Shirebrook
colliery and other local coalfield sites. The Committee will recall
its recommendation that this model could provide a way forward
for tackling similar problems found elsewhere in the coalfields.
We have since provided several HMR Pathfinders with briefings
on Meden Valley and ODPM is using it as a best practice example
in its support to Pathfinders. EP will review progress on Meden
Valley during 2005 as the first stage of a formal evaluation of
its performance;
— funded some local authorities to
carry out housing market renewal research and other assistance—including
in East Durham, Sunderland, West Yorkshire and West Cumbria; and
— liaised with the Regional Housing
Boards to ascertain which of the 56 hotspots identified in the
mapping exercise are also identified within the Regional Housing
Strategies, identify where action is currently underway in these
areas, and highlight whether further analysis/research is required
to understand in more detail the market dynamics of these areas.
This is intended to inform the revision of Strategies currently
underway.
3.7 EP is also active in other non-coalfield
low demand areas. For example, we are working jointly with Lancaster
City Council, NWDA and the Housing Corporation to fund a masterplan
to transform the West End of Morecambe by increasing the proportion
of owner-occupiers and the range of house type and tenure available,
reducing the empty homes in the area and enhancing the overall
environment.
CONCLUSION
As well as direct project delivery, given our
national remit EP can play a role in the dissemination of best
practice across Pathfinders and low demand areas in a similar
way to that already underway for other national programmes such
as coalfields, URCs and Millennium Communities.
| 
