Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Communities and Local Government
Question 57 (Mr Austin Mitchell): ow many
affordable homes will be built on the Newcastle brewery site
Bridging Newcastle Gateshead acquired part of
the brewery site to provide family housing as part of a wider
mixed use scheme of development with Science City at its heart.
Following acquisition of the remainder of the site by the Regional
Development Agency, Newcastle City Council and Newcastle University,
it was agreed that a comprehensive masterplan would be needed
to provide the framework for this area of major change and subsequent
regeneration. The masterplan would effectively achieve mixed use
development, building on the strength of the City Centre (to the
east) and providing social and economic benefits for the residents
of neighbouring areas (to the west) receiving housing investment
from BNG and the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO).
The masterplanning work began in early 2007
and will be completed in February/March 2008.
The latest proposals emerging from the masterplanning
work suggest that there will be approximately 450-500 homes included
in the redevelopment. The mix and level of affordability has yet
to be set, but will be determined by Newcastle City Council's
Housing Strategy, its emerging Core Strategy and the funding plan
for the overall scheme.
Question 109 (Angela Browning): What cost
savings might be realised from changes in structure with the creation
of the Homes and Communities Agency
Details about the future role of the Homes and
Communities Agency (HCA) in relation to the housing market renewal
programme have yet to be finalised.
However, the option appraisal by the department
into the creation of the HCA sets out the costs and benefits of
both modernising existing structures and of moving delivery functions
into the new body.
In terms of the work in relation to mixed use
regeneration, which includes Housing Market Renewal, the largest
benefits would come from allowing all the programmes within the
workstream to invest in the early stages of a project, allowing
a single project appraisal approach.
Other benefits would include bringing together
land and grant streams more efficiently, and creating a single
point of contact for partners. This would also enable better information
sharing.
At present, it is not possible, however, to
quantify the level of savings these efficiencies might bring.
Question 111 (Mr Mitchell): What data is
available about either (i) speculative activity and its contribution
to high turnover, or (ii) immigration, particularly from EU Accession
states
All pathfinders are aware of some speculative
activity in their areas, but believe this to be of a fairly limited
extent. Some speculation may have traditionally taken place in
these areas before the housing market renewal programme began,
because of the low price of the houses, and particularly when
properties were exchanging hands for a few hundred pounds. Equally,
any area earmarked for regeneration—whether through Government
programmes or not—might be expected to see some speculative
activity.
However, although there is some anecdotal evidence
of speculation, it is not possible to provide detailed, validated
data to show categorically what the level of speculation has been,
chiefly because of the difficulty in defining what is pure speculation
and what is longer-term investment.
Similarly, it is difficult to provide any consistent
or validated data about the amount of immigration into market
renewal areas or the number of migrants from EU Accession states.
All the pathfinders are aware of some, although it is often on
different scales, depending on the size of the pathfinder area
and the economic opportunities available—some are estimating
the levels to be around 1-2,000 over the last two to three years.
Many of the newer EU migrants stay for a very short time, move
around within the private sector and are therefore not picked
up in local authority data collection. The pathfinders are continuing
to make efforts to monitor this, but at present information is
very sketchy.
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