Brierfield and Nelson (Regeneration)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Don Foster)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) on securing the debate, on the forceful way he has drawn the Government’s attention to the concerns in his area and on his success in his lobbying endeavours to date. I understand the challenges that he has raised and I will address them as best I can.

Before I do that, however, I thought it would be helpful to put into context the Government’s work to help areas such as Pendle drive forward better growth and regeneration. We are firmly of the view that local leaders are best placed to understand their local economies and the needs of their areas, and that is why, as we have developed our policies, we have done all we can to reform the system, putting the levers and incentives in the hands of local leaders and local communities. It is also why we have established local enterprise partnerships, bringing business and local authority leaders together. We have also established enterprise zones, worked with the major conurbations through the city deal programme and introduced a £750 million Growing Places fund at the local enterprise partnership level.

We have supported small businesses through the small business rate relief scheme and decentralised control over resources, for example by removing many of the ring fences on local authority budgets. We have rewarded places that deliver growth through, for example, the new homes bonus and the business rate retention scheme. We recognise in doing that how important regeneration sites such as Brierfield mill and Nelson are to Pendle’s local economy.

I am delighted that I will be added to my hon. Friend’s long list of Ministers within the Department for Communities and Local Government whom he has lobbied on these issues. He referred to his lobbying of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis); the visit that he had from the Minister for Housing, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk); and the conversations that he has had with my noble Friend Baroness Hanham. As a result of that lobbying, and that of the excellent local council of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, we have already seen some real successes, which bear repetition. As he rightly said, he has secured £100,000 for the development of Nelson high street as part of the Portas pilots, and he described to us the excellent use to which those funds are being put. A further £100,000 has come from the high street innovation fund to provide yet more help in areas with the highest empty property rates.

Pendle has also received two thirds of a million pounds of new homes bonus money, which has already been put to excellent use in helping first-time buyers obtain mortgages by providing guarantees. Pendle has received £2.3 million of direct funding to bring 227 empty homes back into use by March 2015, as my hon. Friend said. Perhaps most significantly in the context of this debate, Pendle has already received £1.58 million of funding from the Government through the Homes and Communities Agency to buy Brierfield mill, securing the site for development when it might otherwise have been sold off for piecemeal developments. I must also refer to his successful lobbying of the Government that led to the announcement of £5 million of business support through the regional growth fund.

As my hon. Friend rightly said, there are still a number of challenges, with much to do and problems to be overcome. I must point out that there is no hidden pot of cash that I can dip into to help solve some of those problems. As he has already been told by my hon. Friends in the Department, the funding streams are already fully committed, but that does not mean that we cannot provide further assistance in some form. I particularly encourage him to ensure that his local council is working as closely as it can with the Lancashire local enterprise partnership.

My hon. Friend referred to the bid for assisted area status. He has rightly said that if that is granted, it will make the area eligible to receive regional aid, typically in the form of capital investment in business. I am pleased to hear that the council is working actively to take up the opportunity of applying for assisted area status for four wards in his area. He is well aware that we are at an early stage of the process. Stage 1 of the consultation phase closes on 30 September. Returns from that first phase will inform the development of a draft assisted areas map, which will be drawn up by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for stage 2 of the consultation in the winter. Following ministerial agreement, the map will then be submitted to the European Commission for clearance before coming into effect on 1 July 2014.

Although there is still a way to go, I seriously urge the council to work closely with the local enterprise partnership, because the LEPs, with their clear strategic overview of their area’s economic priorities, will influence decisions on assisted area status significantly. It is crucial that Pendle influences the LEP’s thinking. By raising the issue so publicly today, my hon. Friend has already helped the cause, for which I congratulate him.

I am particularly concerned to hear about some of the problems being faced in relation to the empty homes programme, which my hon. Friend has rightly highlighted. We have provided £235 million of direct funding to help local authorities, housing associations and community groups address the most problematic empty homes, which would not otherwise be brought back into use. As he rightly says, Pendle has received £2.3 million of that funding to bring 227 empty homes back into use by March 2015. The council and registered providers are working incredibly hard to address those empty homes, as the reduction in the number of empty homes in Pendle is already proving. They have already had great success, but as he has pointed out, there is a complication in the case he describes: many successful empty homes schemes are predicated on councils and other providers leasing the empty homes from their owners, which has increased the number of private sector leasing schemes such as the LinkedUp empty homes scheme operated by Together Housing Group.

Having recently been made aware of the particular challenge that my hon. Friend describes, the officials in my Department are already seeking a solution. Our attention has also been drawn to that challenge by the Empty Homes Network. It transpires that some mortgage lenders are not agreeing to their borrowers entering into the lease arrangements on which the empty homes programme is based, which I find incredibly surprising because such private sector leasing schemes will not only provide a regular rental income for the owners to help them repay their mortgage but improve the value and condition of the asset. Derelict properties sitting on the asset books of mortgage companies are a problem not only for the mortgage company but for the local community. Such properties become a magnet for rats and squatters, driving other local residents away.

I hope mortgage lenders will look at the scheme rather more favourably that they have to date. To try to achieve that, my officials have been working closely with the Empty Homes Network and the Council of Mortgage Lenders to highlight to lenders the real benefits of entering the scheme. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that the Council of Mortgage Lenders is now engaging directly and closely with us on that issue, and we hope to persuade it to support the programme and persuade its members to engage much more actively in it. Those discussions are ongoing, and I cannot say that there has been a positive outcome, but successful discussions are taking place. Additionally, the Empty Homes Network is now going to produce a guide designed to help lenders and providers find suitable solutions to the problem. I am pleased that we are making some progress, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work to ensure that the issue is being addressed in the way that it is.

I am also aware of the discussions that have taken place between the borough council, the Homes and Communities Agency and my Department on the further development issues around Brierfield mill. We will continue to do all we can while bearing in mind that there is no hidden pot of cash that I can find. My hon. Friend particularly referred to the European regional development fund bid related to the mill, on which there have been difficult procurement and state aid issues. Following those discussions, we have ring-fenced the ERDF funds for the project, and we are now awaiting a further application from the council. Provided the application addresses the issues in the way that we have advised, I am reasonably confident that we will be able to approve the bid.

On the link road, there are no funds available within the Department to assist my hon. Friend. I am sure he will be active in lobbying other Departments, and I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Transport will now be looking forward to having further discussions with him.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he and his council have done in making huge strides on the regeneration of the area. He has made an important contribution to that work, and I thank him for continuing to raise the issue, for bringing the problems to us and for ensuring that we are working collectively for the benefit of the people who live in his constituency.

Question put and agreed to.