This NAO report looks at the regeneration of English regions (HCP 214, session 2009-10, ISBN 9780102963229). The NAO states that The Regional Development Agencies' physical regeneration programmes have helped to generate additional regional wealth. However, because of Agency weaknesses in identifying the projects which would maximise regional economic growth, the National Audit Office is unable to conclude the Agencies have secured as much benefit as they should have. Since 1999, the eight RDAs outside of London have spent £5 billion on physical regeneration programmes. For every pound of RDA spending on physical regeneration, an estimated £2.80 is secured from elsewhere, including £1.81 from the private sector. Independent evaluation suggests they have generated Gross Value Added of £3.30 for every £1 spent. Many of these projects will not realize their full benefits for many years and there is potential for a return over the lifetime of the projects of £8 for every £1 spent. However, the National Audit Office has reported that RDAs, because of weaknesses in project appraisal and evaluation might not have identified and backed the most effective projects for generating regional wealth. During the economic downturn, approximately 15 per cent of physical regeneration projects involving the private sector have stalled or slowed because developers are struggling to get finance or because of concerns over future yields.

Reviving the former English coalfields is one of the largest regeneration challenges over the last 30 years. Between 1981 and 2004 over 190,000 people lost their jobs in coal mining. The speed and extent of pit closures resulted in severe economic, social and environmental deprivation in many communities. In response, the Department for Communities and Local Government developed three specific initiatives to regenerate coalfield areas, involving almost 1.1 billion pounds of public money.As at July 2009, the three initiatives had spent 630 million pounds and had brought 54 former coalfield sites back into working use, and enabled private development of 2,700 houses and 1.1 million square metres of employment space.Thirteen years after the start of the initiatives, the Department still lacks a clear vision and has no overarching strategy for the regeneration of these areas, has not sufficiently coordinated the three strands of the regeneration, and has failed to coordinate wider Government activity. In consequence, training and support to help former coalfield communities find employment has rarely been linked to job opportunities created on coalfield sites.The Committee is concerned about the value for money of these initiatives. The Department does not know what improvement has made to the lives of people in the coalfield areas. It does not have a robust assessment to prove to the true number of additional jobs created nor the business occupancy rates for employment space on the redeveloped sites, or the number of people from former coalfield communities who have benefited. Although progress has been made regeneration has cost the taxpayer much more than originally expected and taken longer than planned. The Department needs to develop more sophisticated benchmarks that take into account the different levels of contamination on a site and allow separate evaluation of the incremental costs to develop housing and employment space.

Exploring the streets of London, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh or Cardiff, one cannot help but notice the striking transformations taking place in the urban landscapes. This prominent regeneration of urban areas in the UK and around the world has become an increasingly important issue amongst governments and populations. The growing concern has been a result of the impacts of the decline of cities since the collapse of manufacturing industries and the heightening of global competition. A range of innovative approaches to tackle urban problems have been taken over many decades to attempt to regenerate the fortunes of towns and cities across the UK. This text provides an accessible, yet critical, synthesis of urban regeneration in the UK incorporating key policies, approaches, issues and debates. The central objective of the book is to place the historical and contemporary regeneration agenda into context. Section one sets up the conceptual and policy framework for urban regeneration in the UK. SectiontTwo traces policies that have been adopted by central government to influence the social, economic and physical development of cities, including early municipal interventions in the late nineteenth century, community-focused urban policies of the late 1960s, entrepreneurial property-led regeneration of the 1980s and competition for urban funds in the 1990s. The penultimate section illustrates the key thematic policies and strategies that have been pursued by cities themselves, focusing particularly on improving economic competitiveness and tackling social disadvantage. These approaches are contextualized by discussions covering, for example, urban competitiveness policies and the focus on sustainable urban regeneration. The final section summarizes key issues and debates facing urban regeneration, and speculates upon future directions. Urban Regeneration in the UK blends the approaches taken by central government programmes and cities themselves in the regeneration process. The latest ideas and examples from across disciplines and across the UK’s urban areas are illustrated. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis that will fill a significant gap in the current literature on regeneration and will be a tool for students as well as a seminal read for practitioners and researchers.

This report provides an in-depth study of factors that influence the effectiveness of urban regeneration partnerships, and how they work within the national policy context. It highlights the key lessons of partnership, exploring good practice in leadership, visioning and consensus building, and the translation of vision into workable objectives.

Whitehall initiatives to revive former coalfield communities have helped to make them more attractive places to live and work but many remain among the most deprived areas in England and opportunities to help train local people and promote local businesses have been missed. The regeneration effort has three strands: the National Coalfields Programme, to decontaminate and find uses for former coalfield sites; the Coalfield Regeneration Trust, to provide grants to community projects; and the Enterprise fund, to support businesses. The cost for these three schemes is £630 million to date and spending is set to reach almost £1.1 billion. The Programme expects to have treated 90 per cent of land by its target completion date of 2012 and it will take twice the ten-year timescale of the original Programme to achieve its aims for housing and employment space. While the Trust has exceeded most of its targets, because of strict funding cycles for departments it can currently offer support only up to 2011 and so the future of many projects is at risk. The Department took five years to put the Enterprise Fund in place because of delays in meeting state aid requirements and protracted and unsuccessful negotiations with a private bank. The NAO also found there is no overall strategy to coordinate the three initiatives and each reports and accounts for its work in isolation. A forum established in 2007 to co-ordinate efforts across Whitehall has met only six times, is poorly attended and has no substantive actions to date. At the local level the NAO found the Trust and the Fund could work more closely with the National Coalfields Programme to help train people to benefit from jobs created by the regeneration and to promote local business moving onto employment space developed on the sites. In addition, the Homes and Communities Agency and some Regional Development Agencies each claim all the credit for jobs created on coalfield sites, resulting in over-reporting of the benefits