Low-demand housing areas are asking the government for £350m over the next three years to set up a national strategy to tackle failing housing markets.
A lobby group dubbed the "pathfinder two" submitted a bid to the ODPM this week as part of the 2004 Treasury spending review that will set government expenditure from 2006 to 2008.

The group, which includes the Chartered Institute of Housing, is asking for a three-year commitment amounting to £50m in the first year and £150m in each of the next two years to fund demolition and renewal in low-demand areas such as Barrow in Furness and West Yorkshire.

Sarah Webb, the CIH director of policy, said: "The money will make up the difference between what we can expect from normal funding routes and what the private sector can contribute.

"We're not begging for billions, we know the gap funding needed and we're bidding for it."

Webb said the existing nine pathfinders could slot into the scheme as their current funding came to an end.

The bid asks for money to be given to the respective regional housing boards, which would then decide how to distribute funds to individual schemes. It would be used to tackle collapsing markets and would follow a 15-year national strategy.

The National Housing Federation, the North-east, East Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside Housing Forums, the Northern Housing Consortium and the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies are also members of the group.

Its bid comes as the housing market renewal partnership in the Tees Valley, Tees Valley Living, is due to submit a separate bid for £55m to help it tackle market failure in Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool, Darlington and Cleveland.

Source

Housing Today