Regeneration is too important to be left to the politicians. Here seven top decision-makers from the regeneration world tell the new government how to really make a difference on the ground. Josephine Smit took the minutes

In the run-up to the election, the government hosted a summit of regeneration and housebuilding decision-makers to help outline policy for a third-term Labour government. At the same time, Regenerate organised its own summit of seven players (see right) to debate policy objectives and ways to convert them into facts on the ground. Our panel came up with recommendations that could give the new government something to think about.

Central government


Although the government has taken a big interest in regeneration, it has introduced too many quangos, initiatives and funding streams.

Wilson Why do we have URCs? Why do we have UDCs? Why all these various bodies?

Charlesworth Before I came here, I tried to write down all the sources of funding available in this market, and all of the authorities responsible for delivering regeneration – and I ran out of paper.

Derbyshire The government has got pilotitis – E E there is a proliferation of pilot programmes. It’s not about not having the money. Our research found that in 2003 the government’s budget for regeneration was underspent by 64%.

What’s the solution?

Obviously, some rationalisation would help. Failing that, it would be useful to have some clarification on what’s what.

Even at a regional level there isn’t that clarity in priorities, so something is wrong

Pete Wilson

Majid It would be great to have a one-stop shop that says what funding is available, what agencies there are, that sort of thing.

Regional government


The government’s failure to set up an effective decision-taking body at the regional level was regarded as its Achilles’ heel – and something that has serious repercussions for regeneration.

Derbyshire We notice that regions find it absolutely impossible to identify priorities at a regional level. That is something we have noticed particularly on large-scale projects in the North. If you take the Tees Valley, where there is only enough economic activity to sustain serious economic growth in one out of five towns, who is going to make the choice about where investment will go?

Wilson At one level we’ve got local area agreements and the local strategic partnerships that are supposed to know how to deliver joined-up policies for health, education and housing in the voluntary sector. But even at a regional level there isn’t that clarity, so something is wrong.

Charlesworth You need someone who can take a perspective on infrastructure for the required cross-region rather than in a district or in a county. Without that you can’t have an effective operational region. If you do have autonomies of growth of GDP then you can achieve synergies across borders.

Lane The RDAs have to some extent brought these processes to bear. The difficulty is that there’s so much regeneration activity around it is quite difficult to co-ordinate and prioritise it. There is more co-ordination and prioritisation now than there used to be – but still not enough.

Many people working in the public sector aren’t equipped with the skills to do the job

Nahid Majid

What’s the solution?

Although voters in the North-east thought otherwise, it looks as if John Prescott’s proposal for regional assemblies was not such a bad idea after all.

Derbyshire I’ve come to understand why Prescott wanted regional assemblies. One of the reasons for having regional assemblies might be to have sensible regional economic and spatial strategies that have political support.

Local government


Our panelists considered local authorities to be a prime obstacle in the joining up regeneration, more for their lack of skills than a lack of will. Sadly, there was no local authority representative on our panel to fight their corner.

Lucas A lot of the big regeneration projects are not coming out of agencies such as SEEDA, they are coming out of local authorities and the local authorities don’t have the skill to do them.

Majid Many people working in the public sector are not equipped with the skills to do the job. You have to have the project management skills in place to deal with these large-scale projects. But we also have to consider the political dimension here. Decision-makers have to go through a political process and a lot of officers are quite nervous of making a decision, whether it is planning or anything else.

The approach of focusing regeneration investment on the worst first must go

Ben Derbyshire

Lane It is easy to criticise local authorities, but they have a huge number of responsibilities, so to see what the implications of a project are, people have to be consulted and things have to go through all the correct procedures.

Charlesworth One way of dealing with that is to take it out of the remit of the local authority and form a partnership.

Lucas But often when that happens, the local authority perceives it as failure on its part.

What’s the solution?

Our team of experts offered advice on how to work with local government, and how local authorities could work more effectively.

Lane The first thing to look at is the local authority buy-in. The local authority has to be totally committed politically to the concept.

The local authority has to be totally committed politically to the project

Bob Lane

Lucas The first question I ask at major regeneration projects now is: Has it got buy-in from the politicians?

Ellis Maybe projects should involve both the private sector and the public sector. The private sector’s concerns are things like: How much time have we spent on this? Are we getting a return yet? Is this project going anywhere or is it sitting here for another five years? Whereas in the public sector, especially in a town council, there are not the same pressures and for the individual officers, life goes on. Maybe there is a need to put together that slightly different dynamic and those different aims.

The rules


The rules and regulations governing procurement and funding have become the stuff of regeneration folklore. The following points are a few of the many problems faced.

Derbyshire There is a propensity for the state to go headlong into complex procurement procedures. Competitive procedures may involve perhaps four teams in parallel, each doing a masterplan on the back of a masterplan that has already been prepared. The opportunity cost of the three that lose is enormous – and at the same time we have a shortage of skills.

Charlesworth We go through that on every single project in PFI.

Lucas PFI isn’t joined up to other things. We are working on a major regeneration project that has a PFI in the centre of it. But instead of being invited to work with it, we’ve been told to ignore it.

The first question I ask at major projects now is: has it got buy-in from the politicians?

Joanna Lucas

Wilson Then there’s the fact that every funding regime is on a totally difficult timescale.

Lane And there’s the time. With the Official Journal, we’ve worked out that it takes six to nine months to go from a preliminary notification to selecting someone.

What’s the solution?

Throwing away the rulebook isn’t an option but rules could be simplified and the amount of duplication reduced. That would not only help to join together individual regeneration projects, it would also save money.

Wilson There is an enormous amount of waste here …

The panel

The investor
Andrew Charlesworth, managing director, Regenter
Regenter invests in and manages social housing and regeneration projects. The company is a joint venture between John Laing’s Equion subsidiary and UK Pacific Investment Management. Its first deal is the Bentilee Hub joint services centre in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

The architect
Ben Derbyshire, managing director, HTA Architects
HTA is a firm of architects with a long list of regeneration projects to its credit, from Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust in north-east London to Ore Valley, in Hastings, East Sussex.

The commercial developer
John Ellis, project director, Amec Developments
Amec’s development projects include the 300,000 ft2 mixed-use Lewisham Gateway and the St Paul’s Square office, residential and leisure scheme in Liverpool.

The quango chief
Bob Lane, chief executive, Catalyst Corby
Catalyst Corby is the urban regeneration company leading the growth of this Northamptonshire town, doubling its population.

The housebuilder
Joanna Lucas, development director, Crest Nicholson
Crest Nicholson has moved into regeneration in a big way with schemes such as Bristol Harbourside.

The project manager
Nahid Majid, associate director, Turner & Townsend
Majid’s workload includes the project management of the Greater Ashford Development framework in Kent.

The multidisciplinary consultant
Pete Wilson, managing director, Tribal Urban Futures
The Tribal group’s multidisciplinary subsidiary is working on the South Kilburn and Clapham Park New Deal for Communities projects.

SIX more things that our experts believe would make regeneration more effective.

1. Pure project management
Derbyshire There is a role for project management – not the kind of project management that we see in construction, but pure organisational project management.

2. Partnership
Charlesworth Skills are limited. The only way to unlock them is through partnership.

Majid There is a need for fair and open partnership where information is shared.

Lane We need a blending of private and public sector skills.

3. Leadership
Ellis Often what is missing is leadership. When you find it, whether it is in a chief executive or a politician, it makes all the difference.

4. Better skills all round
Majid A lot of the professions have a limited mindset and think purely as an architect, an engineer or a surveyor, and trying to get that joined-up approach from the professions is really difficult.

Charlesworth The issue isn’t the number of people we have, the issue is them learning the skills necessary to do their job.

Lucas We need troubleshooting teams.

5. More than masterplans
Derbyshire Instead of masterplans or development frameworks, we need to create a prospectus for regeneration to demonstrate what every party stands to gain from it. A prospectus would join everyone’s aims and set out the value that everyone gets out of it – for a lot of people it might be quality of life, whereas for a financial institution it is profit.

Charlesworth But it has to be more than rhetoric. On LIFT projects we are saying that to get a partnership you create a common target for all. That common target is a shared objective, so you have everybody moving in the same direction.

6. An emphasis on economic regeneration
Ellis Because of our professional background, there tends to be a focus on physical objects, buildings, but regeneration is about things such as economic success.

Derbyshire The approach of focusing regeneration investment
on the worst first must go. Under the Estates Action programme, millions of pounds was spent on estates, and it often made no difference. The Neighbourhood Renewal Unit still seems to be spending money on the worst locations, but the best way would be to focus on locations that have the potential to earn money.

Source

RegenerateLive