Written evidence submitted by Leeds City
Region
The Leeds City Region is the single largest functional
economy outside of London, with a £52 billion economy, generating
5% of the nation's GVA economic growth. The City Region has over
103,000 businesses and a resident workforce of approximately 1.4
million people, and covers the districts of Barnsley, Bradford,
Calderdale, Craven, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds, Selby, Wakefield,
and York.
The diverse geography and nature of the City Region
does though present a multitude of regeneration needs and challenges
both in urban and rural areas, and city and town centres. The
city region includes both economically prosperous areas alongside
areas in need of long term regeneration and renewal, which is
reflected in City Region strategies and investment plans.
Collaboration between authorities in liaison with
the private sector and other partners at the city region level
over the past five years has been critical in ensuring a coordinated
approach to effective planning, infrastructure alignment, delivery
capacity, and links to employment growth. Regeneration remains
a key strategic priority for the city region and the emerging
Local Enterprise Partnership, and there are significant concerns
about how the city region can maintain momentum in the face of
significant reductions in core regeneration and renewal funding.
We are at a critical stage, and the City Region is responding
by exploring and piloting new collaborative approaches to respond
to the changing fiscal and policy environments, including seeking
to maximise the benefits presented by potential new opportunities
such as the New Homes Bonus, Tax Increment Financing / Enterprise
Zones, and Asset Backed Vehicles.
Our response to Committee's specific questions are
set out in the attached Appendix 1, which is submitted as evidence
to support the Inquiry. Due to the importance of regeneration
to the city region in terms of supporting economic growth and
social and environmental enhancement, we would welcome the opportunity
to appear at the Inquiry to share our views and experiences directly
with the Committee.
March 2011
APPENDIX 1
SUMMARY OF
KEY POINTS
— We
would advocate an approach to regeneration of "thinking big,
but acting locally". Regeneration and renewal requires a
package of locally tailored interventions addressing job creation,
liveability and viability issues together in a holistic manner.
— The
city region is diverse and incorporates areas of strong economic
growth and areas of deprivation and regeneration need. Significant
progress has been made in completely restructuring regeneration
areas, although some considerable needs remain.
— Locations
with significant impacts on wider economic growth such as town
and city centres, and areas continuing to undergo major structural
change will continue to require substantial public funding to
support their regeneration. Elsewhere, smaller scale locally tailored
interventions tackling root causes rather than symptoms of deprivation
and vulnerability will be appropriate approach, with some support
funding.
— The
quality of the urban environment still presents a barrier to both
investment and an attractive residential offer, and this will
inevitably need public sector capital to resolve.
— Long
term secured public funding will continue to be required to address
market failure to enable the necessary long term planning and
support major structural change, but this is increasingly uncertain
due to significant reductions in capital and mainstream regeneration
related funding. Eg, in the apparent absence of an alternative,
sufficient public funding for major town and city centre regeneration
will rely on substantial RGF funding.
— Gap
funding is not needed for all regeneration activity. In many areas
the focus now needs to be building market capacity through targeted
interventions and catalyst projects.
— The
Government's new incentive initiatives such as the New Homes Bonus,
Regional Growth Fund, and Affordable Rent, present opportunities
to support regeneration activity, but needs will far outweigh
available resources, and these market-based approaches are unlikely
to provide the necessary support in areas of greatest need.
— In
the slow growth economy, it is unlikely that significant private
sector investment will be attracted to support regeneration. New
approaches such as Asset Backed Vehicles, Tax Increment Financing
and Enterprise Zones could provide solutions to lever in significant
private resources and secure long-term sustainable investment,
but will require freedoms and flexibilities from Government; eg
in relation to the use of former RDA assets.
— There
is little evidence that the government's approach of reducing
perceived obstacles to investment, such as "bureaucracy",
"planning rules" will have a positive impact in the
more challenging areas.
— The
Government's emerging delivery approach on skills and employability,
inward investment and business support (single national contracts;
delivery agencies rather than policy makers determining priorities)
is likely to make a coordinated approach to regeneration at the
local level more difficult. A strengthening of the "duty
to cooperate" powers to apply to all relevant agencies and
partners would help alleviate this barrier.
— The
City Region is being proactive in liaison with DCLG. DECC and
HCA to explore and pilot new innovative ways to maintain momentum
in tackling regeneration, utilising both local public and private
sector resources, and the opportunities created by the new national
incentive and support initiatives.
Q1. How effective is the Government's approach
to regeneration likely to be? What benefits is the new approach
likely to bring?
1. Tackling regeneration is complex, requires
a holistic and multifaceted approach and long term perspective
and commitment, particularly if there is a need to completely
restructure communities and areas. Although the Leeds City Region
is the largest economy in the country outside London and is continuing
to experience economic growth and increased prosperity, the city
region is diverse and incorporates areas of significant deprivation
and regeneration need, particularly in areas still recovering
from the previous decline in the coal and manufacturing industries.
2. Although, significant progress has been made
over the past 30 years, some of these areas remain characterised
as "run-down" due to a combination of, for example,
poor quality housing and neighbourhoods; poor accessibility to
good quality schools, amenities and services; a prevalence of
negative social issues such as drug abuse and disconnected families;
and probably, most importantly, a lack of employment opportunities.
These circumstances often lead to a downward spiral of disadvantage
and vulnerability for local people in these areas, as well as
poor quality environments and conditions.
3. No single measure can address all these failings
in an effective way; For example, improving housing and the environment
can have a substantial impact on quality of life, health and mental
well-being and help attract new investment into an area, but would
not directly affect the (often poor) underlying economic circumstances
of individuals. Regeneration, therefore requires a range of interventions
that tackle a number of issues in a holistic and complementary
manner. The necessary package of interventions will be different
in different areas and circumstances and, therefore, in principle
a local/neighbourhood approach offers the most effective opportunity
for success.
4. It is recognised that the fiscal environment
in the short to medium term is very challenging and the days of
major capital interventions in regeneration areas are unlikely
to return, at least for some time. The quality of the urban environment
still presents a barrier to investment and to creating attractive
residential offers, and this will inevitably need public sector
capital to resolve. However, although some areas that require
major physical change will still require significant levels of
capital investment, effective regeneration can in many areas be
achieved through smaller scale targeted local/neighbourhood revenue
intensive interventions, particularly focussed on improving the
underlying causes that affect local people's life chances; supported
by a modest level of capital investment for housing and environmental
improvements:
CASE STUDY:
HOLBECK, LEEDS
Holbeck in Leeds is a mixed community of postwar
social housing and pre 1919 back to back terraces close to the
city centre and the Holbeck Urban Village regeneration area. Whilst
the social housing stock is in line for a major PFI renewal scheme,
the terraced neighbourhood has been the subject of a recent partial
clearance programme and suffers from a poor quality environment
and high levels of deprivation. If this neighbourhood could be
improved alongside the social housing stock then a critical mass
of sustainable urban regeneration could be achieved linking together
the residential neighbourhoods of Holbeck through the urban village
to the city centre.
There is little likelihood of significant capital
funding in the foreseeable future to regenerate the terraced neighbourhood,
so an alternative strategy is being developed to build a partnership
with the community to deliver a programme of neighbourhood improvement.
This will involve a phased set of actions and community
development work to gain community confidence, deliver sustainable
environmental improvements and improved community safety and move
on to create community assets, including new green space and social
facilities. A key part of this work will be the deployment of
experienced family intervention workers as the core of a community
regeneration team delivering support to problem families to reduce
anti-social behaviour and worklessness. The desired outcomes are:
— a sustainable
and stable neighbourhood;
— owner-occupier
and landlord investment in property improvement and maintenance;
— small
scale inward investment in local retail and service activity;
and
— an
increase in property values.
When the community has developed its ideas and priorities
for neighbourhood improvement a modest grant to pump-prime a neighbourhood
renewal fund built on community fundraising and attracting support
in cash and in kind from business, would be a major boost for
local confidence and an important step towards a self-sustaining
process of community regeneration. Small scale neighbourhood level
regeneration of this kind is the way forward at this time in this
and other similar areas. Whilst government funding for regeneration
is being significantly reduced, a small proportion of the funding
the Government intends to invest in regional development could
be used very productively supporting grass roots community-led
regeneration of this kind.
5. A major challenge is to ensure that the modest
available resources are targeted and phased in the most effective
manner. The Government's approach to de-ringfencing funding regimes
will be helpful in enabling local authorities and partners to
be more responsive to addressing local needs. Though in practice,
the significant budgetary pressures currently being experienced
will impact on where resources are targeted, which may not be
where they were originally intended. Similarly, although some
of the Government's new incentive initiatives such as the New
Homes Bonus and Regional Growth Fund present additional funding
opportunities, there are significant concerns that needs will
far outweigh available resources; that expectations have been
raised nationally that they will be the solution for almost anything
and everything; and in practice due to the scale of available
resources they are likely to only have a limited impact overall,
particularly in the North where regeneration needs are most prevalent.
6. The coordination of activity and pooling of
resources locally from local authorities, the Police, education
and skills providers, and Government agencies is essential to
maximise regeneration outcomes. In this respect, the Government's
approach to decentralisation is welcomed to a degree. However,
in practice, it is often difficult to secure the full commitment
of some of these bodies to long-term strategies and priorities
due to their narrowly focussed responsibilities. Furthermore,
the Government's emerging delivery approach on skills and employability,
inward investment and business support (single national contracts;
delivery agencies rather than policy makers determining priorities
for investment; no local leverage) is likely to make a coordinated
approach to regeneration at the local level more difficult. A
strengthening of the 'duty to cooperate' powers to apply to all
relevant agencies and partners would help alleviate this barrier.
7. Regeneration and renewal remains a key priority
for the Leeds City Region Partnership/emerging Local Enterprise
Partnership - for example, in terms of the private sector housing
stock, there are estimated[82]
to be around 280,000 non-decent private sector homes in West Yorkshire
alone, 78,000 of which were inhabited by vulnerable households.
Within this stock there are around 45,000 back-to-back properties,
of which up to 50% fail the decent homes standards. The areas
in which this stock is located have a strong correlation with
concentrations of poor health, and many are within the top 10%
of the most deprived areas of the country.
8. Addressing these and wider regeneration needs
will be increasingly challenging due to the massive capital reductions
in regeneration related funding in the city region due to the
ending of RDA funding (circa £300 million pa), Housing Market
Renewal pathfinder funding (circa £4 million pa), private
sector housing renewal funding (circa £25 million pa), as
well as reductions in HCA funding and mainstream funding to local
authorities; mainstream funding has always played a significant
role in supporting regeneration activity. Similarly, it is uncertain
as to the Government's view on the continued use of the Private
Finance Initiative, which has been successful in attracting significant
private investment for regeneration schemes, but which if continued,
is likely to be smaller scale and in a different form due to changes
in financial regulations.
9. Together with the wider public sector job
cuts, which are likely to have a significant and disproportionate
impact on Northern areas, there is likely to be an even greater
need for regeneration activity over the coming years, particularly
in relation to job creation and labour market accessibility, and
"place making".
10. The City Region is keen to develop and pilot
new innovative ways to maintain momentum in tackling regeneration,
utilising both local public and private sector resources, and
the opportunities created by the new national incentive and support
initiatives. We are currently working alongside DCLG, DECC and
the HCA to explore new innovative ways for continuing private
sector housing and neighbourhood renewal and delivering the Government's
Green Deal, including investigating the potential of new opportunities
presented by, for example, Affordable Rents, New Homes Bonus and
the Community Infrastructure Levy.
11. However, these new funding initiatives by
their nature, work against areas in greatest need. Furthermore,
there is little evidence that the government's approach of reducing
perceived obstacles to investment, such as "bureaucracy",
"planning rules" will have a positive impact in the
more challenging areas. Indeed it is important that authorities
have the powers and resources to set high aspirations for the
quality of development in these areas.
12. The City Region has been in the vanguard
of developing proposals around Accelerated Development Zones/Enterprise
Zones and Tax Increment Financing, which we are keen to pilot
in the city region. We have also made significant progress in
developing proposals around a city region LEP based Asset Backed
Vehicle (ABV), which could incorporate public sector assets such
as local authority and former RDA land, to lever in European and
private sector investment and form a long-term sustainable self-financing
development and regeneration delivery vehicle. We therefore welcome
the Government's proposals in relation to TIF, retention locally
of business rates, and the potential use of RDA and HCA assets,
which would allow the city region LEP and partners to pool significant
resources to maximise regeneration and local economic impacts.
13. Importantly, regeneration does not need gap
funding for everything and the focus going forward needs to be
on building market capacity through targeted interventions and
catalyst projects. Developing mechanisms to secure sustainable
long-term funding needs to be a priority, recycling funding such
as through an ABV and utilising, for example, business rates where
the commercial case is strong. Gap funding should therefore be
much more targeted to provide upfront support to unlock the greater
potential of regeneration areas. The difficultly though will remain
the need to meet the twin aims of supporting regeneration in both
growth and less prosperous areas. A fair and equitable society
and the need to maximise overall economic growth demands actions
to tackle both.
Q2. In particular:
(a) Will it ensure that the progress made
by past regeneration projects is not lost and can, where appropriate,
be built on?
(b) Will it ensure that sufficient public funds are
made available for future town and city regeneration projects
as well as for more localised project?
14. Regeneration areas tend to be by their nature
located in areas where market failure exists and public sector
investment and intervention is required to bridge the gap where
the market will not provide. In some of the larger areas such
as the Green Corridor in the city region, situated in former coalfield
areas where major structural change has been necessary, significant
time and resources have been invested over the past 10-20 years
to completely restructure these areas. Significant progress has
been made, but the considerable reduction in public sector capital
now available for renewal and regeneration is seriously jeopardising
the completion of these long term projects, and the progress made
is in grave danger of being lost due to a lack of a guaranteed
funding source.
15. It is recognised that the Regional Growth
Fund (RGF), New Homes Bonus and Community Infrastructure Levy,
for example, could offer opportunities, but due to competing budgetary
pressures/national competition, it is unlikely that the necessary
levels of capital will be available for completing these transitional
schemes and enabling them to once again fully contribute to economic
growth and prosperity. The RGF is, in principle, a potential major
funding source that could make a significant contribution, but
the criteria for funding focussed, for example, on direct private
sector job creation, makes it challenging to build a strong business
case for the funding for regeneration and renewal projects and
programmes. In the slow growth economy that we will likely experience
in the short-medium term, it is highly unlikely that significant
private sector investment will be attracted to fill the gap in
these major regeneration areas.
16. In regeneration areas that have completed
major structural change and areas where the needs are less extensive
or severe, including rural pockets of deprivation and those within
more prosperous wider market areas, the Government's new initiatives
may support much of the smaller scale local interventions that
may be sufficient to tackle the regeneration needs. However, even
in these areas, it will be important that a modest level of direct
funding from Government for regeneration is available to plug
any small scale funding gaps that may arise.
17. The lifeblood and economic and social drivers
of towns and cities are their centres. Where major town and city
centre regeneration need is identified, it is critical, particularly
where market viability is marginal, that such regeneration is
undertaken as a matter of urgency. In the Leeds City Region, the
centres of Bradford and Barnsley fall into this category, and
their potential to act as catalysts to accelerate city region
economic growth and prosperity is recognised. However, although
plans are well advanced in these areas, and up until the recent
recession, packages of public and private resources were in place
or being negotiated, the significant reduction in capital funding,
including RDA funding, has left these critical economic projects
in a state of hiatus.
18. Private sector investment has similarly been
reviewed in the light of the economic climate, increasing the
potential burden on public investment and intervention. Currently,
the only direct source of significant funding for major town and
city regeneration projects appears to be the RGF, although Round
1 bids were more than 10 times over subscribed. Also, as mentioned
previously, it remains to be seen whether larger scale regeneration
schemes will provide the employment and leverage outputs that
are sought by Government from this fund.
CASE STUDY:
BRADFORD CITY
CENTRE CENTRAL
BUSINESS DISTRICT
(BCBD)
The BCBD was submitted through the Leeds City Region
for Regional Growth Fund Round 1 funding. It is essentially looking
to rebalance the city's economy and build on a great entrepreneurial
culture and great businesses in growing sectors. Bradford needs
more great businesses and it needs its existing business to grow
and thrive in the UK and beyond. In particular it needs to address
the uncompetitive and unattractive City Centre that is a result
of 20th Century industrial decline and lack of investment. A new
Central Business District and revitalised retail offer through
the Westfield Shopping Centre development are essential elements
in building Bradford's economy. These two projects build on investment
of more than £3 million in key streets that connect the City
along with a £24 million investment in Bradford's City Park
to act as an enabler to private investment in the CBD and other
key developments. Through a critical mass and high quality delivery
right in the heart of the City, the projects will create transformational
change for businesses, investors and Bradford citizens.
Bradford City Centre is well placed to unlock the
development of a number of strategic sites once initial funding
can be secured to provide a development platform in facilitating
the BCBD. We anticipate that later sites would not require any
public sector intervention as the critical mass in the centre
would be established through targeted interventions in BCBD and
Westfield. The provision of 500,000 sq ft of retail space by Westfield
and the availability of the BCBD will facilitate circa 5,000 new
jobs and substantially increase city centre footfall leading to
wider regeneration and investment in the city centre. The impact
of prioritising two catalyst projects will then have the ability
to change the whole perception of the Bradford city centre and
its wider the district.
The delivery of these projects will be overseen by
the City Centre Delivery Group, Chaired by the Chief Executive
of Morrison's and comprising CEO level membership of three leading
PLC's, along with the CEO and Leaders of the three main parties
in the Council. There is wide private sector support for the approach
which builds on approximately £300m worth of investment
already made in the city centre. This has included investment
from both London based developers like Welbeck Land and also investment
based in the Middle East. But clearly focus on the targeted projects
and their combined effect will radically improve investor confidence,
improve development viability and raise land and property values
in the city centre in particular.
19. The TIF and local business rate retention
initiatives may provide potential funding sources in the medium
term, although these rely on a successful and growing economy
and business base. These models will therefore not generate sufficient
funds to be reinvested in regeneration where there are weak markets
areas. The current city region proposals for an Asset Backed Vehicle
may provide a potential secure funding source through recycling
investment, but this is some years off at the moment, and town
and city centre regeneration is required now to contribute to
the much needed acceleration in economic growth and prosperity.
20. In the current absence of any alternatives
of any scale, unless significant RGF funding is made available
for key major town and city centre regeneration schemes in areas
where market viability is marginal, sufficient public funds will
not be available for major town and city regeneration projects.
Q3. What lessons should be learnt from past
and existing regeneration projects to apply to the Government's
new approach?
21. We would advocate an approach to regeneration
of "thinking big, but acting locally". High ambitions
and commitment are required to truly achieve a transformation,
but this requires dedicated and locally tailored solutions.
22. As discussed previously there is a continuing
need for major regeneration efforts and resources in priority
locations such as town and city centres and areas of major structural
change. Regeneration in areas elsewhere in the city region could
be achieved through smaller scale locally tailored interventions
that tackle root causes rather than symptoms of deprivation and
vulnerability. There have been examples in the past where this
has not occurred due to a focus on short term physical improvement
rather than long term social improvement. This has provided short
term remediation but has meant that some of these same areas have
returned to a state of need some years later. This has often been
perpetuated from national Government through physical regeneration
based initiatives such as City Challenge and to a lesser extent
the Single Regeneration Budget.
23. The principles of the HMR Pathfinders and
New Deal for Communities which sought to provide a secure funding
stream over 10 years and beyond were more realistic in recognising
that effective regeneration is not a short term activity. Similarly,
the principles of the PFI scheme to attract significant additional
private sector investment should continue to be a key ambition
for the public sector, although future or replacement schemes
should not require millions of pounds to be spent upfront on procurement.
24. Going forward, a key factor for any regeneration
scheme is to have a guaranteed long-term funding source that enables
the necessary long term planning to be put in place, irrespective
of the scale of the resources needed. There are opportunities
through the Government's proposed funding and incentive initiatives.
However, due to uncertainties over budgets and priorities and
some being both subject to a competitive process and likely to
be significantly oversubscribed, this certainty is not being provided
at the current time. This uncertainty is already also hampering
efforts to secure complementary funding, including from the private
sector.
25. It is critical that regeneration strategies
and initiatives are not left uncompleted. This can lead to Blight
and further disadvantage for local communities, such as in terms
of land laying underused and homes boarded up.
CASE STUDY:
GREEN CORRIDOR
HOUSING MARKET
RENEWAL
The Green Corridor alliance was established by Barnsley,
Doncaster and Wakefield councils in 2003 to promote the regeneration
of former coalfield areas in the three districts. Its primary
focus has been housing renewal - six neighbourhoods experienced
complete housing market collapse during the late 1990s, with up
to 60% of properties falling vacant in some areas, concentrations
of poor quality renting, and associated problems of crime arson
and anti-social behaviour. Many other neighbourhoods were also
showing signs of vulnerability at that time.
The priority was to deal with the crisis areas through
clearance, enabling the remaining residents to relocate into areas
of their choice. Over the last decade all but one of the areas
has been purchased by agreement and cleared. Without external
capital funding through government Private Sector Renewal funding
and the Housing Market Renewal programme this could not have been
achieved.
New mixed-market housing has already transformed
Grimethorpe, bringing in higher income residents to stimulate
the local economy. The remaining areas will be redeveloped as
the market recovers. However, the cessation of the Housing Market
Renewal Programme leaves uncertainty about how to fund critical
work to bring sites forward and stimulate market engagement. This
has put forward as a Round 1 bid for the Regional Growth Fund.
In other vulnerable areas, the focus of the programme
has been holistic neighbourhood renewal to target worklessness
interventions, tackle substance misuse, address crime and anti-social
behaviour, and improve housing conditions. This has required significant
and sustained officer resources.
Although the areas in crisis have been successfully
addressed., the wider economic and environmental deficits require
continued intervention; for example, achieving a competitive workforce,
improving town centre environments, attracting new businesses,
supporting marginal home owners, improving private rented housing.
26. It is important going forward to embed a
true culture of sustainability within regeneration strategies
and interventions. Adopting more holistic package approaches to
tackling regeneration such as has been tried and tested in other
parts of Western Europe, including addressing design, job creation,
liveability and viability issues together, if outcomes are to
be maximised.
27. In many areas, the focus needs to be on addressing
social regeneration needs - providing specialist intervention
to truly working with local residents, local businesses, and community
groups. This will help identify underlying problems and the necessary
targeted interventions, particularly in relation to families (eg
tackling anti-social behaviour, homelessness, drug and alcohol
addiction) and job creation (eg long-term unemployment, access
to jobs, local business support), which tend to be the root causes
of deprivation and neighbourhood problems. The Family Intervention
Services and other socially targeted initiatives such as the Leeds
Local Inclusion Lab proposal to address the needs of adults with
multiple disadvantage, provide such services in the more deprived
areas of the city region critical to tackling these fundamental
causes of regeneration need. These initiatives though are labour
intensive and require revenue support.
28. An important initial objective should be
to secure a degree of stability in regeneration areas. This often
requires improving law and order first within communities to help
improve the confidence of residents in their area and be the pre-requisite
for attracting further investment. Working closely with families
and local businesses, and undertaking capital improvements to
housing and neighbourhoods will complement these activities, helping
to improve quality of life and further assist in generating investor
interest. As a principle, it is essential to generate stable social
environments as a pre-requisite to ensuring that capital investment
will maximise its impact and help create long-term sustainable
quality neighbourhoods.
29. As we are exploring on a number of levels
in the Leeds City Region, there is a need to explore innovative
new solutions to integrating public service delivery (including
eg health and police resources), accessing a range of funding
opportunities, pooling these resources (eg as in the Community
Budgets pilots), and rigorously prioritising and phasing interventions
that maximise both the delivery of required outputs and the value
for money of public resources.
Q4. What action should the Government be taking
to attract money from (a) public and (b) private sources into
regeneration schemes?
30. As we are already undertaking in the Leeds
City Region, the public sector will need to rethink its approach
to regeneration, not necessarily lowering long-term ambitions,
but recognising the realities of the market and public support,
and seeking new innovative solutions to long-term problems. Expensive
and intensive property and land assembly schemes are unlikely
to occur on any scale, but as discussed above, the economic importance
of towns and city centres and areas still undergoing major structural
change, need to be recognised as priorities for major public investment.
31. New models such as the ABV approach, Enterprise
Zones, TIF and retention of business rates appear to present viable
opportunities to secure long-long term sustainable investment.
Importantly, though it is unlikely that a one-size-fits-all approach
will be appropriate throughout the country, and Government should
therefore welcome local areas and Local Enterprise Partnerships
such as in the Leeds City Region, bringing forward locally based
solutions to regeneration and renewal challenges. Government should
be supportive of proposals for devolution or freedoms and flexibilities
that are identified to enable such approaches to work effectively
- one example of this in the city region is for Government to
allow former RDA assets to be incorporated within the proposed
ABV to help lever in significant additional European and private
sector investment, which would likely reap much greater long-term
sustainable financial and regeneration benefits than would simply
selling them off.
32. It is difficult to attract private sector
investors into regeneration areas as these areas tend to result
from systematic market failure of some description. Policies incentivising
the development of brownfield sites, and/or underwriting the risk
could help to persuade businesses to invest in such regeneration
areas. In stronger economic areas though, with the right strategy
in the right locations, targeted interventions could be the catalyst
for improving commercial viability that would be sufficient to
lever in additional private sector investment for regeneration
and renewal.
Q5. How should the success of the Government's
approach be assessed in future?
33. As noted regeneration is complex and takes
time to achieve sustainable results, so assessing and measuring
success is difficult. Measures such as levels of employment, unemployment,
homelessness, fuel poverty, drug and alcohol abuse land brought
back into use, and private sector leverage could provide useful
indications of the direction of travel in the short to medium
term. The appropriate measures may be different in different areas
depending on the nature of regeneration needs.
34. Over a longer period, the long term impacts
of regeneration activity will need to encompass the effects on
levels of multiple deprivation, economic growth and prosperity,
and whether areas have truly experienced structural change. Qualitative
measures will be just as important and quantitative measures in
assessing the long term impacts.
82 Building Research Establishment 2006 Back
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