Housing: Market Renewal Partnerships

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, capital is capital and revenue is revenue in local government terms, and seldom the twain shall meet; there really is not an option to move between capital and revenue in this instance. That will not provide flexibility. However, the Government announced on 9 June the removal of ring-fencing, so there will be flexibility in local government to deal with issues such as this.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, will the Government require housing market renewal partnerships to desist from pulling down old houses to which people are very much attached and which it would be less disruptive and cheaper to refurbish rather than replace?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, this has been an issue ever since the pathfinder programme was set up under one of the previous Secretaries of State, John Prescott, when there was a great overexuberance in some parts of the country for felling old houses. It is entirely up to each pathfinder and local authority as to what they do, but the message must have gone out very clearly that some people love old houses. If they can be put right and the neighbourhood maintained, that would seem to be a reasonable answer.