Regeneration

Debate between Bill Esterson and Clive Betts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend describes the situation in Merseyside well, including in Bootle, my constituency neighbour. There are 6,000 empty properties in the borough of Sefton. He rightly says that people want these properties to be redeveloped and want the work carried out. I hope that he agrees that a combination of private and public money is needed to achieve that. In my constituency next door, people want those properties developed as well. The pressure knocks on, into the green spaces and the green belt. He touched on planning policy frameworks. All these things are linked up. Unless regeneration is done properly, particularly in respect of empty homes, other strong pressures come into play.

[Mr Betts]

I agree. Whether it is demolition or refurbishment, there is not one right answer. The right answer arises in the context of a local community making decisions. The worst thing that can happen is leaving the areas to decay, because housing pressures, which are not being responded to there, spill over into greenfield sites, although we would rather have houses either demolished and rebuilt or refurbished on existing brownfield sites.

In the end, the criteria are simple. Communities considered whether the areas had a future, whether there was demand for the properties and community support for refurbishment or demolition, whether houses had already been refurbished once, 30 years ago and whether they were adequate. For example, the house that I described in Bootle was built straight on to the road, with no back yard and little prospect of being made into a substantial family home. A number of properties in Skinnerthorpe road in the ward that I used to represent in Sheffield, which is now part of the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), are tiny little homes that are damp and inadequate and were subject to demolition, but the larger homes on the road next door, which could be refurbished as family homes, were refurbished properly as part of an ongoing programme, generally with community support.

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[Mr Betts]

Most of the people that I have spoken to simply hope that some budget is available—that is our criticism about identifying what budgets were available. We had the Growing Places fund which seemed to be mainly about benefiting places that are growing, rather than places of market failure.

I will make one aside, which is probably party political. Yes, of course there are reductions in public expenditure, but is it really fair to have a 19% overall cut in public expenditure in the current spending round, a 28% cut in local authority grants, a 50% cut in funding for social housing investment and a 100% cut in regeneration funding through the HMR scheme all at once? That is to put the situation in stark terms.

Let me continue, however, by saying that the Select Committee recognised some really positive developments. We certainly welcomed tax increment financing and local enterprise partnerships, but we wanted to be sure that LEPs were aware of the need to link into regeneration areas. If LEPs are creating jobs, how can they then help to benefit people in some of the poorest communities? That is a positive point. TIFs of themselves are not aimed in particular at regeneration schemes, but they can of course create projects that benefit people in regeneration areas, although how that funding can then be properly linked is a challenge.

We were pleased by the Government commitment on the European regional development fund and their intention to spend all the ERDF budget. Indeed, the Committee will do a further report on that. That has potential for the gap funding to which I referred. The challenge is ensuring that the funding is used and that it is used as constructively as possible in regeneration areas.

We also very much welcome the extra transitional funding of £35 million that the Government found. That was helpful, because of the despair in some of those areas, where only one in 10 houses are lived in and people are struggling in desperate circumstances. To have the funding simply cut off was a real blow, so it was good to have a bit of money put back in the five worst areas, with matched funding from councils, to help people in such conditions. I am sorry about comments in the press in the past few days from some people, who do not live in those areas, complaining that the Government are funding demolition. Of course they are. If nine out of 10 houses are not occupied and we still have to deal with the one that is, the only logical conclusion is to demolish, and to create the area for future regeneration. Of course that is the logic. The Government should be supported in doing that and in working with councils on the problem—I certainly do so.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is describing well the need for massive levels of investment in such areas, but the mention of Lord Heseltine made me want to contribute. There is a rather unfortunate association with the early ’80s in Merseyside, given the release of Cabinet minutes suggesting that the idea of managed decline was something that the Government of the time were considering. Lord Heseltine was of course the one who made sure that that did not happen—to his great credit, and he has recognition for that on Merseyside. My concern, however, is that unless what is recommended in the report is put in place, we could see that managed decline happening in all sorts of places up and down the country.

[Mr Betts]

That is a worry and it is why intervention by public bodies, whether Government or local authority, is necessary. I am sure that Merseyside will be in there fighting its corner.

We paid a visit to Greater Manchester and had an interesting briefing, not merely from the local authorities, cross-party and working together, as they do, on a strategic partnership basis, but from the private sector as well, arguing the case for the infrastructure and skills budgets for the city region to be brought together under local control. The Government have responded positively through the community budget “whole place” initiative, and the revolving infrastructure fund for the Greater Manchester area is another positive step forward. The city deals that the Government are trying to reach are also to be welcomed. Hopefully, more powers will go down to the local level. If cities choose working together to target resources in particular ways to stimulate and to help regeneration, they will be free to do so. Those are a welcome response to the report and the issues we identified.

To conclude, we are dealing with some of the poorest areas in the country—yes, some in the south, as well as in the north and the midlands. Such areas have already had years of decay and decline. If there is no recognition of that, no intervention and no public money made available, those areas will simply get worse, more areas will fall into similar decline and the cost of putting the problems right in the long term will be even greater. In the meantime, the cost in human misery will be substantial.