Elsewhere in Yorkshire and the Humber, though, there is no shortage of cheap homes. Average house prices in parts of Rotherham, south Yorkshire, are just one-sixth of those in the area surrounding York and the region is blighted by low demand. It has two market renewal pathfinders, in South Yorkshire and Humberside, but these cover only half of the stock deemed at risk of low demand.
This intense north-south polarisation in the region's housing market has wider consequences for its economic revival: while Harrogate buses in its workers, councils such as Hull, Doncaster and Barnsley struggle to attract businesses because of a shortage of skilled labour and of homes for high-flyers.
The government's answer to northern economic stagnation is the Northern Way, a strategy that envisages a huge growth area stretching from Hull to Liverpool and from Sheffield to Newcastle. It aims to help an economy worth £200bn – £62bn of which is in Yorkshire and the Humber – to grow 15% by encouraging industrial and economic development. Housing is a secondary issue.
Industrialist Sir Graham Hall, recently appointed chair of the Northern Way steering group, says: "Economic development is key. There's no point building housing if there aren't jobs within a reasonable distance."
But there are concerns that unless the region's entrenched housing problems are sorted out, its full economic potential will never be fulfilled.
Richard Lewis, cabinet member for housing at Leeds council and a member of the regional housing board, says: "We had [ODPM junior minister] Yvette Cooper here the other day, and in her view it's all about creating jobs. We have to get people to understand it's not that simple."
Homes first, jobs to follow
In much of the region, there are swathes of abandoned housing in old coal, steel and textile towns struggling to find a new economic justification for their existence.
Businesses are reluctant to invest there, fearful that they won't find high-quality staff. The problem is so acute that South Yorkshire gets Objective One funding from the European Union, which is designated for areas with less than 75% of EU average wealth. It will receive £700m between 2000 and 2006, of which £460m is already committed to business development projects.
But Bill Payne, chief executive of Yorkshire Housing Association, which owns and runs 12,000 homes, feels that sorting out the housing market is a prerequisite for economic prosperity: "If we want to stop high performers moving away, then where is the high-quality executive housing? How are we making the area a nice one in which to live?"
Tony Stacey, chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association, adds: "Unless we do something about the environment and housing of the South Yorkshire region as a whole, the area will never be able to recover – it'll be stuck with the 'it's grim up North' tag."
In these areas, mammoth efforts by many councils to meet the decent homes standard are resulting in widespread demolition: Sheffield has already knocked down 50 tower blocks and will demolish 31,069 more council homes by 2011. But this, on its own, will not beat the problem when almost four-fifths of the region's vacant homes are in the private sector. The government office has estimated that it will cost £237.2m to demolish just half of the surplus private sector stock.
In the north of the region, the problems are different. Leeds has found huge success within the new financial and customer services industries and this has caused nearby housing markets to become seriously overheated (see "High prices: the golden triangle")
York needs 900 new affordable homes every year to meet demand, but building rates are currently a fraction of that amount. Harrogate, facing a similar affordability problem, has no land left for development in its local plan. Fierce local opposition to new development exacerbates the problem.
Add to this the fact that North Yorkshire also expects to lose at least one-fifth of its council stock to right to buy sales by 2011 and you can see why Steve Pearson, regional director at Home Group, says the situation is now critical: "It's classic South-eastern affordability issues. There's a waiting list for affordable homes growing all the time and a massive homelessness crisis now."
Meanwhile, work goes on …
But among all this, there is much action on the housing problems to be positive about. The two pathfinders are slowly but surely securing government cash to deal with low demand (see "The two pathfinders"), and sub-regional groups are forming to tackle the remaining problem areas.
The furthest forward is the Yorkshire Housing Partnership. The area missed out on pathfinder cash, but the partnership has £16m of funding for the next two years from the regional housing board. It has the support of Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, Leeds and Wakefield councils, and six of the region's RSLs – Pennine 2000, Yorkshire Housing Group, Bradford Community Housing Trust, Manningham, Chevin and Leeds Federated. In addition, the government office, the Housing Corporation and the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward are backing the group. The partnership plans to demolish 5300 homes and build 3000 over a 15-year period in 27 "areas of intervention".
As ever, the long-term problem is funding – the group has identified £533m of additional public money needed over the next 15 years, and has no clear source for this yet.
The three adjoining boroughs of Wakefield, Barnsley and Doncaster have some of the worst problems of abandonment of the whole region – a landmark report on low demand by the Centre for Urban Regeneration studies found around a third of properties were at risk of low demand.
But the three councils are hitting back, with a 10-year plan to restructure the area's housing markets in the "green corridor", with particular attention to ex-coalfield communities.The plan has been allotted £2m of transformational funding from the regional housing pot and is working with consultant Abra to amass evidence to back the case for more, and hopes to bid for a further five years of funding.
Abra director Gaynor Asquith says: "We're looking at re-establishing a hierarchy of settlements. Before the industrial revolution small villages, big villages and market towns existed side by side. Coal made them all into large towns. Now it's gone, we must work out what needs to be stripped away."
The region is buoyed up by a sense that this time, things will change. Although the Northern Way may not answer everybody's prayers immediately, there is a palpable sense that Yorkshire may have a chance to turn itself around. The economic success of Leeds has given the region a belief that it can successfully regenerate towns and give places new functions.
At the Yorkshire Housing Partnership, Hugh Jones, the coordinator and neighbourhoods and housing strategy manager for Leeds, sums up this new-found optimism: "We're tackling the problems which are hangovers from a bygone age – de-industrialisation.
"The difference is that we're doing that at a time of fundamentally very buoyant markets, and it's happening within a much stronger external economy. If we get it right there's every chance we can make a difference."
High prices: The golden triangle
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s 540-home Derwenthorpe scheme, formerly known as New Osbaldwick, has been four years in the making. But the development in York still hasn’t received outline planning consent. Unfortunately, this is a typical scenario in affluent North Yorkshire, where building rates are the lowest in Yorkshire and the Humber – just 2500 homes a year, compared to 6030 in West Yorkshire. Project manager Ian Atkinson says: “The parish council is openly in opposition to the scheme, and residents’ groups have lobbied MPs, councillors, the Environment Agency, anyone they can, because they’re worried about the impact of the scheme and the social housing element.” York council needs another 900 affordable homes a year to meet demand; the £50m JRF scheme would provide fewer than 200. Indeed, the area between Leeds, Harrogate and York has become known as the Golden Triangle. Average house prices there are consistently above £150,000, and prices in some parts have tripled since 1998. Prices in Harrogate are now 75% above the regional average. Leeds, Harrogate and York councils, with Home and Yorkshire housing associations and the Housing Corporation have set up the Golden Triangle Partnership with £500,000 of regional housing board money to address the problem. But, says Stuart Whyte, strategy director for B&N Housing Group and a member of the regional housing board, “the problem here is whatever you can do tends to be small beer when ex-council properties are selling for £170,000.” He goes on: “None of the councils have any land left in their ownership, so you’re having to compete with the likes of Persimmon on the open market. The only way RSLs can get in is section 106 deals.”Low demand: the two pathfinders
The Humberside pathfinder’s problems are well documented. In the same week, last month, that South Yorkshire received £71m to put its market renewal plan into action, Hull and East Riding finally got its hands on £2.6m of seed-corn funding. The other eight pathfinders got this money a year ago. Humberside has been struggling valiantly against the odds. Initially faced with indifference from Hull council, it took six months to get Hull and surrounding rural authority East Riding to agree to work seriously together. It has a target of September to get its strategy together, a full six months later than any of the other nine. At the same time as the formulation of the pathfinder plan, Hull council was descending into central government supervision, partly because of its poor performance on housing issues. In January the pathfinder board was changed to include the leaders of both of the affected councils – standard practice in the other pathfinders. In June last year it was given an eight-week ultimatum by the government to shape up its strategy or risk losing pathfinder status. Morale wasn’t helped when just a month ago regeneration minister Lord Rooker referred to England’s “eight plus one” pathfinders. Despite these setbacks Stuart Whyte, chair of the Humberside pathfinder, claims it is back on track: “We’ve submitted a revised plan to the ODPM which is still showing September as the deadline. It’s challenging but still achievable.” On the other hand the South Yorkshire pathfinder has benefited from the services of Mike Gahagan, former head of housing at the ODPM and one of the architects of the policy as its chair. Without the benefit of existing market renewal strategies like Manchester, Liverpool, and Newcastle and Gateshead, it has nevertheless had the help of working across a number of forward-thinking councils, including Sheffield, which has won plaudits for its housing strategy. The pathfinder covers Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster, an area known for chronic industrial decline. On 26 March it received £71m to tackle the area’s problems over the next two years, including a ground-breaking scheme to get city living in to the centre of Rotherham. Jeff Goode, chief executive of the pathfinder, says: “There are missing rungs in the area’s housing market ladder – types of properties that just don’t exist. We need to develop these missing links.”Will Alsop: renaissance man
Architect Will Alsop is a man who provokes controversy. He is also a man with big plans for Yorkshire and the Humber – plans that run from transforming Barnsley into a Tuscan hill-top village to replacing the region’s railways with ultra fast mag-lev trains. Alsop has attracted plaudits and opprobrium in equal measure during his 20-year career with projects like Peckham Library, North Greenwich tube station, the Colorium Tower in Dusseldorf and the planned Fourth Grace in Liverpool. He once likened a visit to the acclaimed Tate Modern to a “trip round a shopping centre” and called for it to be torn down. He also branded Bath, a world heritage site, “boring”. Now he is coming to Yorkshire. Alsop has been outspoken about his desire for Yorkshire to shed its cloth cap image and many of its buildings. Of Barnsley, he says: “Some of the buildings – like the 1960s market – drove everyone away. They’re just ugly. There’s a place for beauty in all these things and this was, well, ugly – I’d say it was sub-Belarus.” Alsop unveiled his masterplan to turn the ex-coal community into a Tuscan hill village in September 2002, and has since added plans for a giant halo over the town created from powerful lasers shone into the sky. The idea has not struck a chord with everyone. One long-standing councillor called it “embarrassing” in the local press. Nonetheless, Alsop’s detailed masterplan is on course to be adopted by the council within months. Alsop rejects accusations of ivory-tower unrealism: “These projects came from listening and working with the people and the children. I asked them to describe life in 15 to 20 years’ time,” he says. On the plan to rip out the railways in favour of mag-lev trains, he says: “In Shanghai, mag-levs reduced the time to get from the airport to the city from one hour to eight minutes. We could get to Hull from Liverpool in half an hour.” Alsop intends to make Barnsley’s town centre more densely populated but his masterplan for Bradford has taken the opposite approach. “Bradford has more listed buildings per square mile than any other place in the country. But between this there’s a whole lot of 1960s crap. Instead of densifying, we decided we should clean it out – take out all these bad buildings. Let the city breathe.” This has been no less controversial, although the plan has just received the backing of Yorkshire Forward. With its proposed lake in the city centre and urban park, more prosaic Bradford residents have been quick to point out how much of an eyesore a dilapidated lake full of shopping trolleys could become. The urban regeneration company is pressing ahead with the water feature, but has admitted that it may have to be scaled back. But all of this pales into insignificance next to his over-arching, and most controversial, vision for the region – indeed, the M62 corridor. Alsop says: “Take all the cars off the M62. Put in really good service stations, with large car parks and fleets of comfortable buses taking people up and down the motorway. The freight can stay, but cars have to use minor roads. Then spread the population out in new settlements.” Alsop says of Yorkshire: “Its great strength is its highly imaginative people. “They’re not at all rooted in the 19th century, as people still think. But if we don’t upgrade the environment, all the people with talent will leave.”
Yorkshire & the Humber: the stats
- Population: 4.98 million – projected to rise to 5.01 million by 2006
- Unemployment: 5.4% (national average: 5%)
- 2.16 million homes of which 70% are owner-occupied, 13% rented from local authorities, 10% privately rented and 7% rented through registered social landlords
- Average price of a home (last quarter 2002): £92,157, an increase of 21.7% over 2001
- Households receiving any benefits: 72% (national average: 69%)
- Vandalism, burglary and vehicle thefts, 2002-3: 4163 per 10,000 households
Source: Office for National Statistics, compiled by Pinnacle PSG
Who’s who
Director of people and communities for the Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber since October 2002, she has won over councils and housing associations with her humour and no-nonsense style. She is credited by many with making a success of the regional housing board. Joanne Roney
Sheffield council’s lively executive director of neighbourhoods has steered the council safely through a potentially disastrous about-face on city-wide stock transfer. She also played a big part in taking forward the South Yorkshire pathfinder. Richard Lewis
Respected across the region, Leeds’ council cabinet member for housing has served his city for more than 20 years, most recently pushing through the decision to split its housing service into six arm’s-length management organisation. He is also chair of the regional housing forum. Stuart Whyte
Whyte’s official post is as business strategy director at rapidly diversifying housing association B&N. However, he is known as a “fixer” within the region. Perhaps his most unenviable role is as chair of the troubled Humberside pathfinder. Bill Payne
The man who 10 years ago made it his business to appear in print as often as possible has kept an uncharacteristically low profile recently. However, under his stewardship, Yorkshire Housing Association is quietly becoming one of the most powerful regional players. Mike Gahagan
Chair of market renewal pathfinder Transform South Yorkshire, the amiable ex-head of housing at the ODPM is now having to focus on implementing the policy he largely wrote. After 33 years as a civil servant, he was presented with a gold medal by John Prescott at his leaving do. Martin Havenhand
Now chief executive of the RDA Yorkshire Forward, Havenhand’s background is in local government – his last job was chief executive of Bassetlaw council. He led much of the renaissance work in towns like Barnsley, which won plaudits for its radical response to the urban renaissance agenda.
Source
Housing Today
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