Pathfinders could lose £1bn private investment
The government’s decision to end the housing market renewal pathfinder programme has put £1 billion of private sector investment at risk and left almost 1,000 residents living in blighted neighbourhoods.
These are the key findings of an Inside Housing survey of Engand’s first nine pathfinders, which were set up by the Labour government in 2002 to fix failing housing markets in the north and the midlands.
The coalition ended the dedicated pathfinder funding programme six years earlier than expected in last October’s spending review. Humberside pathfinder Gateway Hull said £800 million of private sector cash due to be poured into its regeneration areas over the next five to 10 years will no longer be realised now government funding has dried up.
Around £56 million of private investment and the promise of 400 new homes are at risk in Birkenhead, Wirral, according to Merseyside pathfinder New Heartlands.
‘There is…a serious risk that failure to address housing market failure in inner Merseyside will potentially undermine private sector investment,’ a statement from New Heartlands read. ‘A failing market will act as a “brake” on other economic activity,’ it added. The Regenerate Pennine Lancashire pathfinder said it needed extra funding to attract £50 million of private sector funding for new homes.
Ian Cole, professor of housing studies at Sheffield Hallam University, said the effect of the sudden funding cut could prove very damaging for the communities covered by the pathfinders. ‘Promises made in reasonable good faith at local authority level will now have to be broken.’
In Liverpool alone there are 813 occupied and isolated properties in clearance areas. The figure for Hull is 150. Vulnerable residents living in the Merseyside properties face living in ‘difficult conditions for many years to come’, New Heartlands said in a statement. ‘There can be no doubt…that the removal of funding commitments by the public sector will lead to the disintegration of neighbourhoods on a very large scale indeed.’
A spokesperson for the Homes and Communities Agency said councils in pathfinder areas could access funding from the £1.4 billion regional growth fund announced in the spending review and the HCA’s affordable rent programme.
To read the news analysis on the effects of the loss of pathfinder funding click here.
