Examination of Witnesses (Questions 85-99)
MR BOB
PRINGLE, MR
DAVID GIBSON,
MR PETER
BOUNDS AND
MR HARDIAL
BHOGAL
8 FEBRUARY 2005
Chairman: Good morning. If no-one wants
to say anything by way of introduction we will go straight into
the questions.
Q85 Christine Russell: Given the relative
economic weakness of your two areas compared to, say, Manchester
and Birmingham, what grounds for optimism have you?
Mr Pringle: Certainly on the whole
we could be fairly optimistic about the future. There is a lot
of new investment coming into the city to be levered in by Urban
Regeneration Company. The real challenge for the city will be
to try and restructure its employment market so that we have more
of the professions coming in then. This again links back to the
housing issue, because in Hull the problem is mainly about choice
and quality of housing; and until we actually improve that housing
offer we will not attract those people in and, therefore, that
will not have a beneficial effect on the economy.
Q86 Christine Russell: Which comes first,
the chicken or the egg; is it the jobs or is it improving the
housing?
Mr Pringle: I think it is both.
You have to take both things at the same time, so that you get
a beneficial effect on the economy and then you get people moving
in; but you need to have the houses there, the sorts of houses
that would attract those kinds of people into the area; and at
the same time you need to attract in the sorts of companies who
will employ those kinds of people. It is a dual approach that
is actually needed in the economy and in terms of the housing
market.
Q87 Christine Russell: If you have been
sitting in here this morning you will have heard the two different
points of view that the two-up, two-down Victorian terraces must
be retained at all costs, and those who say that actually people
do not want to live in them any more. What is the view from Hull?
Mr Pringle: Most of the housing
in Hull tends to be of a more modern construction although in
West Hull there are terraces of Victorian construction. What is
clear is that there is not the demand to live in terraced housing.
The CURS report suggested that over half the housing was at risk
of low demand; and something like over 50% of it is terraced,
and one-third of all the housing is social housing. What we need
to do is to mix up the tenure within the city so that we can have
the kinds of housing that would attract the high income earners,
and try and capture that money within the city. Pathfinder itself
hopefully will have a role in doing that, because what we need
to do is to capture the investment we are making in construction
jobs and all the other jobs within the city. When the council
itself looks to improve its stock to the decent homes standard
we need to try and capture as much of that money within the local
economy as we can.
Q88 Christine Russell: What is the view
from RENEW?
Mr Bounds: On the first question,
the reasons for optimism perhaps lie a bit in some of the references
you have made to other places that have gone through a lengthier
period of regeneration than North Staffordshire. That is one of
the characteristics of North Staffordshire that a lot of the experiences
we are going through at the moment are relatively new. We do not
have the experience, to some extent the capacity, to some extent
the culture, which embeds regenerations as a core activity in
the area. In terms of some of the issues you have had evidence
on this morning about these famous two-up/two-down properties,
I do not know exactly about the mix but the simple fact is we
have 7,000 void properties in North Staffordshire. It is a population
with a high level of loyalty to its own areas, so a lot of the
movement that takes place in the housing market is people moving
up the quality ladder, if you like, within the North Staffordshire
area. Listening to people talking about a great demand for these
sorts of properties, that is not our experience at all. We have
got this significant number of properties and, one way or another,
we have to get a better match between the number of houses available
of a condition that people want and the number of people who are
seeking housing in the area.
Q89 Christine Russell: Can I just ask
you one other question which is from your evidence rather than
from Hull, where you seem to imply that there is still not very
much progress on getting all different agencies working together:
do you want to elaborate on that?
Mr Bounds: The regeneration partnerships
in North Staffordshire are less mature than they are in many other
places.
Q90 Christine Russell: Do you think that
is the only reason? You do not think there are any particular
problems?
Mr Bounds: No, I do not think
there are any particular problems; in fact, I think we have a
sense of making increasing impact on the agencies that we need
to work with. For instance (and I think this is a unique arrangement),
we are setting up a joint delivery agency between ourselves and
the Regeneration Zone in North Staffordshire, which is a subsidiary
of the Regional Government Agency; and new forms of partnership
in North Staffordshire are coming on very well, I think.
Q91 Chairman: Just on the question of
Hull for a moment, progress has been pretty slow, has it not?
I suppose you could claim to be the tortoise while most of the
other Pathfinders are the hare. The other view is that you are
never going to get going at all.
Mr Pringle: We are in the midst
of our negotiations with the ODPM.
Q92 Chairman: And you think October to
now is a good speed? You submitted your plan in October, did you
not?
Mr Pringle: Yes.
Q93 Chairman: You think that not to have
got it all sorted out by now is "doing alright"?
Mr Pringle: I think the negotiation
process is probably about the same length as some of the other
Pathfinders. We have had the intervening holiday period in there
as well. We are still negotiating but we are very confident we
will reach an accommodation some time towards the end of the month.
Q94 Chairman: What are the difficult
sticking points?
Mr Pringle: There are one or two
issues about deliverability, because there are concerns—
Q95 Chairman: In other words, they do
not think the plan is much good!
Mr Pringle: We have had some discussions
about the plan, and we have suggested some modifications to it
which the ODPM team have agreed with and we now feel we have a
product that both of us are comfortable with, and we can move
forward in that way.
Q96 Chairman: You raised people's expectations
in Hull almost three years ago when it was announced as one of
the Pathfinders. What have you actually achieved on the ground
in that period of time?
Mr Pringle: I think the important
thing is that what the people of Hull want to see is some sort
of progress and some action.
Q97 Chairman: What action?
Mr Pringle: We are now coming
to the point where we can start delivering if we reach this accommodation
with the ODPM. What that progress perhaps masks a little bit is
the extent of the consultations that have gone on with people
right across the city. It is the most extensive consultation programme
that has ever been undertaken in the city. Also, the way the Pathfinders
work, it has brought together a number of partners in a cohesive
way which probably, for the first time, is starting to put together
a package of measures that will tackle all the key issues across
the city, ranging from education to community safety and obviously
to the housing issue.
Q98 Chairman: There is not all that much
controversy in Hull about what you are planning to do?
Mr Pringle: There may be controversy
in certain pockets of Hull about what we want to do. If I can
give you an example: I am relatively new to the city and I started
the job on 1 November, and when I have gone out and spoken to
people, particularly in the western part of Hull, they are just
desperate for something to happen.
Q99 Chairman: Is that not part of the
problem? It appears that perhaps in both cases the people who
started the Pathfinders have not stuck with it?
Mr Pringle: I do not think that
is true. I think the key thing is that we are now getting to the
point where we will have some resourcing, we hope, coming in from
the ODPM and we can begin to tackle those challenges. The important
thing is that we actually get the approach right, rather than
charge headlong into it and get it wrong. What we have been doing
is watching carefully what the other Pathfinders have been doing
and we are hoping we are learning some important lessons from
them.
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