1 Introduction
1. In January 2011, the Government published Regeneration
to enable growth: What Government is doing in support of community-led
regeneration. This document stated that the Government would
be taking a "different approach" to regeneration. This
approach would be "localist—putting residents, local
businesses, civil society organisations and civic leaders in the
driving seat and providing them with local rewards and incentives
to drive growth and improve the social and physical quality of
their area."[1] In
the same week as the document was published, we announced our
intention to conduct an inquiry into regeneration, which would
consider the likely effectiveness of the Government's approach.
2. Regeneration to enable growth does not
provide a specific definition of "regeneration". Within
our evidence, however, there were a number of attempts to explain
what is meant by the term. While the exact wording of the definitions
offered varied, there was broad agreement that regeneration was
a comprehensive process, that it aimed to tackle a combination
of social, economic, physical and environmental issues, and that
it focused on areas of disadvantage, particularly those where
the market alone cannot deliver improvement.[2]
The regeneration company, Igloo, said that the "widely accepted
definition" was that provided by the previous government
in July 2007.[3] This defined
regeneration as "the broad process of reversing physical,
economic and social decline in an area where market forces will
not do this without intervention".[4]
3. Such a view of regeneration suggests that it requires
broad action across a range of Government departments. As the
Minister for Housing and Local Government, Rt Hon Grant Shapps
MP, told us: "you cannot look at regeneration [...] on the
narrow basis of 'What budget is [the Department for Communities
and Local Government (DCLG)] putting into which quango to deliver
what has narrowly been thought of as regeneration' and forget
about health, education, levels of crime and all the other quality
of life issues in a local community".[5]
Our report therefore starts from the premise that regeneration
requires a comprehensive approach to tackling the wide-ranging
issues facing deprived areas. In doing so, it inevitably focuses
in particular upon DCLG's role in supporting such an approach.
It would be impossible in a single inquiry to consider in detail
the relevance of policy on health, education, crime and employment,
amongst other areas, in tackling deprivation. However, we attempt
to draw conclusions about what Government should be doing to bring
these strands together and to draw investment into deprived areas.
Recent events have perhaps placed greater emphasis on the need
for this comprehensive focus: while the effects of poverty and
deprivation alone provide an unsatisfactory answer to the question
of what caused the unrest of August 2011, the subsequent debate
has brought to new prominence the importance of a concerted effort
to tackle such issues.
4. Following our call for evidence, we received over
80 submissions, from local authorities, private sector developers,
the voluntary and community sector, academics, think tanks and
others. We received a small number of responses from community
groups and residents in regeneration areas, whose views we had
particularly sought. The themes emerging from our written evidence
were explored further in six oral evidence sessions, which took
place between May and July 2011. We also visited Greater Manchester
to see for ourselves some of the challenges of regeneration 'on
the ground' and the practical approaches being taken to address
them.
5. We are grateful to all those who gave us oral
and written evidence, to our hosts in Greater Manchester, and
to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, who organised
a briefing session to allow us to explore key issues with leading
regeneration practitioners. Particular thanks are due to our specialist
advisers, Professor Michael Parkinson, CBE of Liverpool John Moores
University and Nick Johnson of Urban Splash.[6]
1 Department for Communities and Local Government,
Regeneration to enable growth: What Government is doing in
support of community-led regeneration, January 2010 [hereafter
"Regeneration to enable growth"], Introduction
Back
2
See, for example, Ev 101 [Urban Pollinators], Ev 124 [National
Housing Federation], Ev w51 [English Heritage], and Ev 148 [Town
and Country Planning Association]. The Centre for Local Economic
Strategies offers a similar definition, but suggests that "the
market can regenerate a location on its own", although "regeneration
has [been] and is used as a means of speeding up or upscaling
what the market can do" (Ev 144, para 2.1.1). Back
3
Ev 213, para 4.1 Back
4
HM Treasury, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform and Department for Communities and Local Government, Review
of sub national economic development and regeneration, July
2007, para 1.13. Igloo quotes it as "a 'process that reverses
physical, economic and social decline in an area where market
forces will not do this without intervention'" (Ev 213, para
4.1). Back
5
Q 357 Back
6
Michael Parkinson declared the following interests: Director of
the European Institute for Urban Affairs at Liverpool John Moores
University, which has generated research income from a range of
public bodies in the UK; at present it has no contracts with UK
agencies. Nick Johnson declared the following interests: Urban
Splash Ltd, Commissioner Commission for Architecture and the Built
Environment (CABE), Director, Bridgewater Estates Ltd and Visiting
Professor of Property Development, University of Sheffield. Back
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