Tories promise street-led regeneration
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Grant Shapps has promised a Conservative government would give individual streets the power to decide how and when their areas were regenerated.
The shadow housing minister told the Royal Institute of British Architects that ‘you can’t “do” great design to other people. Instead we must find ways to empower local residents to exercise more direct and effective control’.
He continued: ‘Today I can say that where there is overwhelming support, we will provide the means for street level initiatives to be used to kick-start the regeneration of tired estates and inner-city areas, enabling people to take back control of their own communities.
‘Instead of regeneration flowing down through a series of complex quangos and layers impenetrable bureaucracy, we will encourage power to be exercised at the very lowest levels of local government, by which I mean parish, ward, but also street level in order to force faster change directed by the very people it will most affect.
‘The emphasis will shift decisively from just creating decent homes to generating decent places to live.’
Mr Shapps said the decent homes programme had been an example of the government’s tendency to ‘spend money, set targets, and ask questions later’.
His comments come after a Sunday newspaper claimed Mr Shapps’ party had advised Conservative councils to delay major housing developments until after the election.
The Observer reported that shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman had written to councils advising that the Tories would introduce new housing and planning policies in their first year of office.
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Readers' comments (11)
Joe Halewood | 01/09/2009 3:00 pm
How strange that the conservatives want to create 100,000 mini quangos?
Is that a bacon pie flying across the sky perhaps? Careful it might hit that kite - no not the ones you shoot - the ones poor people fly!
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Harry Lime | 01/09/2009 3:27 pm
Any clarification of the funding for all this? - Let me guess...... What if the many thousands of streets wanted to get cracking immediately, what if there were neighbouring streets that all wanted to be done at the same time - you know the ones, when there's quite a few streets that want to be done at the same time, you could get some efficiencies of scale and cost less - what could you refer to them as?? - Estates??
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WATT | 01/09/2009 3:49 pm
I presume Mr. Shapps means estates / streets as a whole - there are very few scattered street properties because the RSLs have (quiet) policy of selling them off as soon as they are vacant - it’s just blocks of flats, flats, flats for households of all sizes now.
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Bernard Townroe | 02/09/2009 6:40 am
Wonderful things, words. They can invigorate or depress. This tired old load of cliches does the latter.
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Dave Hollins | 02/09/2009 10:06 am
How right Bernard Townroe is. But beware the new language of the conservatives. Shapps sounds like he talking vacuous nonsense, but in a growing number of places the concept of 'decent neighbourhoods' means wholesale redevelopment of council estates and their replacement by 'mixed communities' - ie most of the social tenancies removed. Stephen Greenhalgh of Hammersmith is the worst case - just read his Localis pamphlet to find out what the Tories really have in store for social tenants. Removal of social housing 'estates' under the pretence of creating mixed communities, removal of security of tenure so tenants can't resist, and market rents. And he's aided and abetted by housing association chief executives like Kate Davies at Notting Hill and David Cowans at Places for People. Lady Porter still stalks the corridors of Tory local government.
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Nicholas Xenakis | 02/09/2009 12:51 pm
Wondering why talk to the RIBA about planning the new regen approach?
Does regeneration now equal building design by architects?
Otherwise which town planner would disagree with the desirability of "Finding new ways to empower local residents to exercise more direct and effective control" or "Finding the means for street-level initiatives to be used to kick-start the regeneration of tired estates and inner-city areas, enabling people to take back control of their own communities."
And if the don't get voted in as the new government, maybe the policy initiative may be copied by whoever wins.
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Nicholas Xenakis | 02/09/2009 12:51 pm
Wondering why talk to the RIBA about planning the new regen approach?
Does regeneration now equal building design by architects?
Otherwise which town planner would disagree with the desirability of "Finding new ways to empower local residents to exercise more direct and effective control" or "Finding the means for street-level initiatives to be used to kick-start the regeneration of tired estates and inner-city areas, enabling people to take back control of their own communities."
And if the don't get voted in as the new government, maybe the policy initiative may be copied by whoever wins.
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Daffid | 02/09/2009 1:31 pm
Oh no not mixed communities!! It's surely better to have segregation in our society, just like the old days - slum dwellings over here, council housing over there, and nice shiny private accommodation in just the right place.
It would appear that whatever administration is voted in (oh oh, democracy) they always come up with the wrong answer, and I have yet to work for an RSL who has a (quiet) policy of stock disposal for profit (as they have to either payback the grant, or recycle it - not good business sense really).
It would seem that some people (usually consultants or academics) who have not had recent practical experiences of how housing has changed over the years are out of touch with the requirements and aspirations of those in our communities. Or maybe like the good old days, they should do as they are told and either like it or lump it!
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WATT | 02/09/2009 4:00 pm
There are RSLs instructing their allocation dept. not to let individual street properties when they become available because they are going to be put up for sale. Indeed, some have on open policy to dispense with their scattered street properties because they (wrongly or rightly) consider the management costs of same as more expensive than looking after tenants on one site i.e. a block. A residential road of say 90 houses containing 10 social landlord houses and the rest being privately owned / rented / other is a mixed community.
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mike davies regen 21 | 02/09/2009 5:28 pm
Master Shapps, are you and the gang planning to tuen RSLs into PLCs to raise cash for the blunders of MR Brown the temp PM?????
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