Do the maths

The government has so far committed £40bn of public funding to carrying through the sustainable communities plan, and yet it will cost £45bn to provide the infrastructure needed to support the housing growth planned for the South-east alone. We all know regeneration comes at a high cost, but the numbers involved are looking likely to push the government’s credit card to the limit.

So let’s get down to business and talk about the one factor that is going to make or break the government’s ambitious regeneration plans. In this issue of Regenerate we are focusing on some of the big questions about money: where it is, who’s got it, how to get it, whether one big regeneration initiative represented good value, and of course, what can be done about those shortfalls in public funding.

Not a lot of public funding goes into the areas that we generally associate with regeneration. Across the UK as a whole, public spending on transport is 1.5% of GDP, whereas for housing it is just 0.6%, according to the latest annual analysis of the country’s balance sheet by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. At the same time, about 7% is spent on health and almost 14% on social protection, the pensions and benefits that people depend on.

Public spending on health and social protection are central to regeneration too, as US regeneration expert Bruce Katz points out on page 36. Regeneration means looking at the bigger picture, at the health, success and opportunity of the community and not only at the newness of its buildings.

We already have a methodology of whole-life costing for buildings that shows the long-term consequences of decisions, but could the government look to whole-life costing for whole communities? Then the infrastructure funding that gives impoverished communities the transport and education to access jobs looks a much better investment. And it might cut that health bill, too.

The 2005 Regeneration Awards

Are you proud of your achievements in regenerating our towns and cities? You should be, and you may well deserve greater recognition for your efforts. So enter our 2005 Regeneration Awards and make sure that you get the chance to celebrate what you’ve done. The deadline for entries is 29 July; log on to www.building.co.uk for your entry form.

Josephine Smit, editor