Memorandum by Groundwork (EMP 15)
Groundwork welcomes the opportunity to contribute
to the Committee's Inquiry on empty homes and low demand pathfinders.
Groundwork Trusts run a number of programmes in the housing renewal
pathfinder areas and have direct experience of working in areas
with weak housing markets.
This submission gives an overview of Groundwork's
activities and the lessons and issues that have been raised through
our experience of working in Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder
areas.
INTRODUCTION
1. Groundwork is a federation of 50 locally-owned
Groundwork Trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, between
them working with over 100 local authorities to deliver "joined-up"
solutions to the challenges faced by our most deprived communities.
1.2 Groundwork has 23 years experience of
engaging and involving communities in practical projects to improve
quality of life and promote sustainable development.
1.3 Each Groundwork Trust is a partnership
between the public, private and voluntary sectors, with its own
board of trustees. The work of the Trusts is supported by the
national and regional offices of Groundwork UK and Groundwork
Wales. Groundwork works closely with the Government and devolved
assemblies, local authorities, RDAs and businesses. Groundwork
also receives support from the European Union, the National Lottery,
the landfill tax credit scheme, private sponsors and charitable
foundations.
1.4 Groundwork's projects are organised
into local, regional or national programmes embracing six themes:
communities, land, employment, education, youth and business.
Groundwork recognises that people, places and prosperity are inextricably
linked and therefore aims to design projects that bring benefits
for all three at once. We believe this integrated approach is
vital if we are to bring about sustainable development.
THE HOUSING
ENVIRONMENT
2. Groundwork has more than 20 years experience
of working with residents to improve "community spaces"
on their doorstep and offers a partnership-based and bottom-up
mechanism for delivering public policy objectives at neighbourhood
level. We have a strong track record of providing this link between
policy and practice and joining up delivery at neighbourhood level.
2.1 Groundwork Trusts throughout the country
are already engaged in partnerships with more than 100 local authorities
and some 70 RSLs, operating within the framework of key local
and regional strategies.
Such partnerships have the potential to deliver
significant integrated activity in five areas:
— improving housing-related environments;
— engaging residents in local decision-making;
— addressing crime and the fear of
crime;
— delivering local learning, skills
and jobs; and
— developing strategic approaches to
open space.
2.2 The introduction of housing market renewal
pathfinders was a welcome step in attempting to find new ways
of breaking into the cycle of decline that continues to affect
areas which are struggling to readjust after losing their economic
purpose or their community focus. The pathfinder projects are
built on the recognition that in many areas of the north and midlands
there are too many poor quality houses with no market incentive
to intervene and in some areas simply too many houses full stop
with a need for an "orderly downsizing" or "managed
decline" to reflect the continuing downturn in demand.
2.3 At the same time, however, strategies
need to be put in place to arrest and reverse the decline if we
are to prevent communities from dying completely. This, clearly,
is a long-term process and one the Government has already prioritised
through its strategies for neighbourhood renewal and urban and
rural renaissance. However, a key factor in the success of this
drive will be finding ways to improve the physical fabric of neighbourhoods
through a process which energises, empowers and enthuses existing
residents to stem outward migration and stimulate inward investment.
2.4 In areas of low housing demand the potential
benefits of improving or creating "community spaces"
close to people's homes are very significant. As areas of over-supply
become subject to large-scale clearances major new areas of open
space will be created. If these open spaces are left unused for
any length of time or subject to cursory landscaping they are
very likely to become the focus for negative behaviour and may
simply compound a sense of desolation among those who continue
to live in the area. Engaging those people in creating attractive
and useful communal facilities—either as a permanent addition
to neighbourhoods or to provide an interim land use—is an
obvious way of mitigating these effects. However, creating such
facilities through a process which generates community confidence
can also support longer term renewal strategies, making areas
safer and more attractive encouraging existing residents to stay
and making it easier to attract new residents and businesses.
2.5 Groundwork's experience of working with
tenants and residents in deprived communities for more than two
decades demonstrates that creating safe, clean and green spaces
close to where people live is one of the most effective ways of
kick-starting a revival in the fortunes of even the most run-down
of neighbourhoods. It also shows the importance of ensuring that
green and open spaces play a central role in the planning and
design of new developments. Where this work is delivered in a
way which gives residents the status of "lead partner"
in the process it generates much wider and more lasting outcomes.
Giving tenants and residents the support, the training and the
tools to take the lead in improving their surroundings can produce
real added-value benefits by reducing anti-social behaviour and
the fear of crime, generating skills and jobs and encouraging
new investment.
NEIGHBOURHOOD LEARNING
3. Another important aspect of developing
strategies for addressing low demand areas is the neighbourhood
renewal agenda and the role of improving skills and enterprise
to rebuilding individual self-esteem and the capacity and prospects
of whole neighbourhoods. Since they were introduced Groundwork
Trusts have been finding new ways of building on New Deal to deliver
training and jobs to the long-term unemployed, increasingly concentrating
on the "hard core jobless"—those furthest removed
from the labour market with the most profound personal and vocational
skills shortages including those on incapacity benefit.
3.1 As well as offering a mechanism for
improving stock and open spaces, these neighbourhood employment
programmes are also increasingly being used to address other key
priorities among housing providers. Poorly insulated homes and
the fuel poverty that results are a major concern on social, economic
and environmental grounds. Increasing the energy efficiency of
housing association stock is one of the key goals contained in
the Housing Corporation's sustainable development strategy and
is linked directly with benefits for residents as well as for
the environment.
3.2 Transitional employment programmes which
focus on installing energy efficiency measures in homes provide
a multitude of connected outcomes—providing jobs, meeting
environmental targets and helping to save the money if not the
lives of vulnerable people living in our poorest communities.
They also help raise the standards for environmental quality in
housing design and repair and provide a pool of transferable skills
in what will clearly be a growth industry. Where these programmes
are developed and extended to create new social enterprises the
dividends are even greater providing long-term job creation and
a new economic stimulus for severely disadvantaged areas.
CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION
4. ODPM's Sustainable Communities plan represents
a significant and valuable step in bringing together a number
of these strands in a concerted effort to address in an integrated
way the need for more, better quality homes in improved and more
inclusive surroundings. As ever, the challenge is translating
this set of ideas and initiatives into action which makes a tangible
and long term difference to our collective quality of life. The
following are a series of measures which Groundwork believes would
contribute to achieving a more integrated approach to housing
and liveability policy which would help address the challenges
facing market renewal areas:
(a) Regional housing strategies should
include plans to improve liveability and housing related environments.
(b) The housing market renewal pathfinders
should develop strategic working relationships with environmental
regeneration agencies in order to capitalise on the benefits to
be achieved from creating and improving open spaces in areas of
low demand.
(c) Learning & Skills Councils,
regional development agencies and housing associations should
prioritise support for estate-based transitional employment programmes
and local social enterprises as a means of delivering improvements
to housing stock and building skills and confidence in deprived
neighbourhoods.
(d) Greater use should be made of voluntary
sector intermediary organisations in determining the views and
needs of tenants, and ensuring that residents continue to be involved
in decision-making and are enabled to play a part in long-term
maintenance regimes and management strategies.
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