Memorandum by Angela Pinter (EMP 33)
SUMMARY
Waste of Public Funding/Cohesion/Spatial Segregation
Great concern must be expressed about the careful
avoidance of the objective facts. The demolition of Henry Sutton
Court, which was recently built, was never occupied and was subsequently
demolished, represents a complete waste of public resources. Many
of the homes due for demolition are owned by registered social
landlords.
The NHF has at great expense launched an initiative
called INBIZ (In Business for Neighbourhoods).
This presumably includes demolishing whole neighbourhoods
too. Several RSLs are demolishing large numbers of properties
in the follow up to the civil disturbances in Northern cities.
Much of this agenda is being driven by housebuilders in tandem
with the social housing industry and it is an industry which seeks
to expand with public subsidy building homes which nobody aspires
to live in the long term.
It was social housing which has a pivotal role
in the events leading up to those civil disturbances. It is not
accident that these disturbances took place in areas where the
inward migration was most intense and where the provision on the
"basis of need" exacerbated and entrenched the segregation.
It is not just a question of oversupply. Regeneration
funding was also area-based and this further fuelled conflict
although there have been many attempts to deny this by regeneration
practitioners, political activists and commentators.
Much of this need was manipulated within particular
ward boundaries or regeneration bid areas with high degrees of
population loss or gain.
The Community Cohesion Panel has paid little
attention to this in relation to the scale of the problem. Failed
housing markets invariably took place in areas with single party
dominance. Such publicly funded fiefdoms found it convenient to
avoid the mounting problems on their doorsteps. This was further
exacerbated by the prevailing lack of enforcement within the built
environment. This included planning permission, party wall agreements,
building regulations.
Now they want to demolish whole neighbourhoods
in order to create "civic pride". How can pride be created
by making the familiar disappear?
Many RSLs are taking part in this agenda by
constantly proclaiming the word "diversity" as if the
mention of the word itself creates something. It is disguising
the reality. There is no diversity in social housing. Nobody who
works in it lives in and or aspires to live in social housing.
Those who do are eager to leave it and move into another tenure
usually owner-occupation. Further social housing no longer contains
a cross section of society. The majority of tenants are long term
economically inactive.
Official agendas are contradictory and are not
reflecting a long term coherent plan. There is an absence of regional
planning. The urban summit, the emphasis on sustainable communities
cannot disguise that many areas have been abandoned by successive
governments. Many towns, especially in the North, had parochial
attitudes and no long term empty homes strategy.
It seems a waste of long-term sustainable resources
to demolish homes which require only modernisation. Building new
homes will not be the basis of a more stable community unless
there is also a sustainable economic hinterland. The failure of
housing markets has been in tandem with drastic changes to and
sometimes collapse of local economies in a vicious circle of decline.
Some issues which should be explored:
There is even a case to encourage second homes
in some areas although this could have contradictory effects unless
there are also plans to intervene to stabilise the local economy.
Knock through grants will merely entrench more
spatial segregation and separation. It will encourage people to
move in specifically because of the availability of such grants.
It is also wrong to reward those who already own property with
more property merely because they have large families. This is
a very perverse incentive which has serious implications.
Short term planning permission is one option
which could be further explored:
— an to out of town shopping centres;
— site value rating (in more prosperous
towns); and
— extension of right to buy.
Community Development Trusts to create broadly
based local stakeholders which can use land values while maintaining
them in the public sphere.
The decent homes standard should be suspended
and is unachievable in certain areas. It could be offered to students
and others who are living on a low income. This may create access
to those who would not otherwise afford
Homesteading basis for renovating abandoned
or derelict homes.
A new local tax. Council tax is now a source
of social injustice with a disproportionate effect on low paid,
particularly for those who are renting. The regressive effects
of council tax in specific locations has encouraged abandonment.
In extreme cases the value of a property can be less than the
annual council tax. Although rare it should never have been allowed
to get to this situation
The local tax base has been decimated in many
declining areas. The vicious cycle of decline is obscured in areas
of comparative prosperity. But in fact many prosperous areas have
large proportion of empty and neglected property with unpaid taxes
which are not pursued by local authorities.
Insurance rates are becoming the measure of
decline and indicate economic activity and property values. More
should be done with insurance companies to create a long term
strategy to arrest decline. Insurance exclusion together with
other forms of postcode exclusion is undermining attempts to make
progress and this is likely to affect pathfinder areas.
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