On 10 January 2016, the Prime Minister announced that "some of
the country's worst housing estates will be removed and replaced
with safe and attractive homes for residents". Key elements of the
announcement are:
- A new £140million fund is to be established to pump prime
regeneration of the 100 worst housing estates across the country
but much will depend on bringing in private finance (institutional
investment/cross subsidy by building for sale/opening up land for
development etc.)
- The government will identify and work with 100 housing estates
across the country "to radically transform them or in the worst
cases knock them down and replace with high quality homes"
- A new Estate Regeneration Advisory Panel is to be set up
chaired by Lord Heseltine and the Panel is to report in detail by
this year's autumn statement
- The Panel will also be tasked with establishing a set of
binding guarantees for tenants and homeowners currently living on
these estates so that they are protected
- The government's mission is "social turnaround, massive estate
regeneration, tenants protected and land unlocked for new housing
based on a comprehensive approach to estate regeneration" with the
Prime Minister saying: "I believe we can tear down anything that
stands in our way"
- The initiative is based on a Savills Research Report
commissioned by the Cabinet Office: "Completing London's Streets"
which looks at how the regeneration and intensification of housing
estates could increase London's supply of homes and benefit
residents. The report makes the case that new developments of
"complete streets" cost less to build than conventional estate
renewal
- The Savills Report looks only at the London housing market and
the Prime Minister in announcing the initiative, in an article for
the Sunday Times, acknowledges that "regeneration will work best in
areas where land values are high, because new private homes, built
attractively and at a higher density, will fund the regeneration of
the rest of the estate".
A copy of the announcement can be found on the DCLG website and the text of the Prime
Minister's article in the Sunday Times can be read here.
that
any additional resources to support the regeneration of poorly
designed council housing estates is to be very much welcomed and
there are some excellent examples of innovative work by stock
retained councils and almos in regenerating poorly designed high
rise housing estates built in the 60's and 70's; however:
- £140million will not go very far when shared between 100
estates and 100,000 residents - certainly not for the radical
regeneration proposed
- It's not clear if this is government money will be in the form
of grant or additional borrowing approval or indeed whether it will
be paid to the local authority or to any private sector
investor/developer involved in the regeneration
- There is no mention in the announcement of the role of council
landlords in the decisions about these estates except that the
Prime Minister refers to"a raft of pointless planning rules, local
politics and tenants' concerns about whether regeneration would be
done fairly"having prevented progress in regenerating such estates.
However the Government intend to develop a new Estates Regeneration
Strategy that "will sweep away the planning blockages and take
steps to reduce political and reputational risk for projects' key
decision makers and investors"
- The 100 worst estates are not named but the Government
(probably through the proposed new Estate Regeneration Advisory
Panel) will identify the 100 "worst estates" to benefit from this
programme
- It's clear the programme will depend heavily on private finance
and building for sale on public land currently occupied by these
estates.
The Savills Research report, on which the programme is based,
focusses entirely on London and London property market and ARCH has
concerns about whether this model will work in lower value areas
across the country. The basis of the Savills report is broadly
that:
- There is opportunity to extract value out of poorly designed
London housing estates and an opportunity to "intensify" the
housing density from the current typical average of 78 homes per
hectare to 135 homes per hectare using the proposed "complete
streets" model rather than "contemporary regeneration" models
- There are approximately 1750 hectares of existing public
housing & land (in London) that might be capable of this type
of regeneration with the potential to provide an additional 54,000
to 360,000 additional homes
- Public land would be vested as equity through some form of
public/private partnership
- All existing social rented housing on a site would be
re-provided as social housing under the regeneration
- Report states it's unlikely that simply relying on council
departments alone will achieve the level of delivery and
regeneration now required but that council landowners, developers,
investors and residents can align and share on long-term
development and ownership models which entail ongoing stewardship
and management of the new places that are created.
View Savills' report on "Completing London's
Streets".