Regeneration

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I echo other hon. Members in saying that it is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, and I compliment the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on his presentation of the report. Those of us who have served in local government for a long time will remember things such as housing action areas—indeed, I lived in one. We have seen many schemes come and go, and certainly in my area the housing revenue account system was one of the more successful.

Like the Chair of the Committee and other hon. Members, I represent an area that has lost one of its core industries. Many of my constituents from Cleethorpes worked in and around Grimsby docks, which was the core industry in our area. For many years, therefore, tourism has been absolutely vital, particularly in Cleethorpes. Although I share the hon. Gentleman’s analysis in his introduction of the debate, I am disappointed with the tone of parts of the report that seem to hark back to past failures.

Yorkshire Forward was the regional development agency in my area, although it was a disappointment from the start in that it did not mention Lincolnshire. It was good, however, at producing many plans, and I served for five years in a Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition on North East Lincolnshire council. To suggest a parallel with another situation, we inherited a council that was basically a financial basket case, and spent three or four years concentrating solely on finance.

Once we were able to break out of that and look at regeneration, economic development and growth, we were hampered by the process-driven strategies of Yorkshire Forward, which, as is generally recognised in northern Lincolnshire, delivered little or nothing. Yes, it created grand visions and consulted with the public—that is essential, as has been mentioned—but the consultations raised expectations beyond what was achievable. Things such as the single regeneration budget and other measures were introduced, and some useful regeneration did take place, but on the whole it was rather disappointing, although I accept that work was done in other parts of the region. If the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government were present, he would say that regions do not exist any more, but the fact is that for many reasons we are still told that we are part of Yorkshire and the Humber.

Much good work was done by the previous Government in cities such as Sheffield, Leeds and others, and we can see how regeneration projects have considerably improved the areas. However, more provincial towns situated in my constituency were—I will not say forgotten, but to some extent too much emphasis was placed on the cities. I hope that the Minister will give me some encouragement that there will be a trickle-down effect towards the smaller towns over the next few years.

The debate about what is growth and what is regeneration has been interesting, but I do not see how we can have one without the other. Regeneration produces growth, and if there is growth, there are more resources for regeneration—it is a circular argument. As the Minister noted in the report, regeneration can mean a great many things. It is not only about the built environment—important though that is—but about health, education and transport, and all the relevant Departments must contribute. Nevertheless, the physical regeneration of our towns is the most noticeable factor because it provides an uplift; the feel-good factor returns, and we need only to go into a new housing estate, school or whatever to appreciate that.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has proposed various initiatives for the high street, and my area was encouraged by the Minister’s colleague, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark)—I never know what his title is because I have seen it listed as the Minister for Cities, Planning Minister and so on. He is a bit of a jack of all trades, but he does all those jobs very well. He came to my constituency a few weeks ago, and the high street was one of the places to which we took him. I am encouraged by some of the initiatives that we hope will emerge in the not-too-distant future.

We need to harness the initiative of the private sector and local investors, and we are seeing that key Government aim come together in the local enterprise partnerships. We had far too many strategies. I noticed somewhere in the report the claim that we are lacking in strategy, but my area had strategies coming out of its ears—“strategies and support” was the phrase used. Whenever we could not define what a certain committee did, we said that it was responsible for strategies or support; it was an all-encompassing phrase that could mean anything or nothing. For a while, I chaired something called the Hull and Humber ports city region transport board. During my two years on the board, I do not think that any of its members, the private sector or the officials, managed to work out what it was actually for, but the guidelines said that it was responsible for strategy.

I mentioned the leadership that I hope will emerge from local enterprise partnerships. An essential ingredient of any successful regeneration scheme—this could be applied to Lord Heseltine and Merseyside, for example, which was mentioned earlier—is the need for some sort of dynamic leadership. That is necessary not only at political level but with local investors and businesses. If those things come together, they can create a vision for the area without the need for thousands of consultants and bureaucrats, and that does not necessarily need to impinge on every aspect of the local community.

Our forefathers who developed our great cities—one can still go to Birmingham, Liverpool and so on and see what they achieved—did not hire a consultant, produce a document and go into endless consultations. They got on with things and ignored the people around them who were saying, “Oh, it will cost money; it will be delivered late,” and so on. They achieved something that we can still see a generation or two later.

We must all mention our own areas in our speeches for the sake of press releases and so on, and I choose a different place in each debate. This time, I shall mention New Holland, of which I suspect few Members will have heard. Before the days of the Humber bridge, the ferry ran from New Holland across the River Humber to Hull. New Holland is a small town that desperately needs regeneration. I have discussed that with North Lincolnshire council, social landlords and so on. Very modest amounts of money, whether channelled through Departments, local enterprise partnerships, or whatever, can kick-start regeneration in a place such as New Holland that has a population of a few hundred. We owe it to the people of those communities to do something for them.

The Select Committee’s conclusion is on page 69 of its report. The point that stood out for me more than anything else was that we need

“a plan for bringing in private sector investment, considering, amongst other things, potential sources of gap funding”

and

“the role of initiatives such as Tax Increment Financing and Enterprise Zones”.

Part of northern Lincolnshire has the largest enterprise zone in the country, and we are deeply grateful to the Government for delivering that.

This is the other point that I noticed on page 69:

“It is crucial that the strategy be based upon a clear understanding of lessons from previous approaches”.

That is what I emphasise as well, because as I said, we failed in my area as a result of the process that was insisted on by the then Government agency.

Incidentally, I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) is in the Chamber. I am sure that she will contribute later, because paragraph 17 on page 68 says:

“We recommend that the Government disseminate to relevant bodies guidance setting out the possibilities for the use of JESSICA in regeneration.”

We therefore really look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend. With that, I will conclude.