SAVE Britain’s Heritage has published a devastating verdict on the discontinued Housing Market Renewal (HMR) Pathfinder programme.
In a new report Housing Scandal! Pathfinder: a Post-Mortem, SAVE attacks both the legacy of the programme and the machinery and ideology which has sustained and supported it. Housing Scandal! includes a paragraph by paragraph critique by Bill Finlay of the recent positive Audit Commission Report which SAVE’s Secretary describes as ‘shamefully partial, disingenuous, clouded with half truths and distorted by unsupported evidence.’
As well as a riposte to the Audit Commission, SAVE’s report is a response to continuing demolitions in Pathfinder areas, and to calls from some quarters to revive the programme.
William Palin, SAVE’s Secretary says:
‘We are in a bizarre situation where some councils such as Liverpool and Gateshead are in effect holding a gun to the head of government and saying ‘let us finish the demolitions or we’ll blame you for the mess’. In most cases there are no detailed plans for redevelopment and no funds to pay for it, so good housing stock worth 10s of millions of pounds, easily capable of renovation, is being sent to landfill, only for the vacant sites to be grassed over. To most rational people this seems wasteful and wrong, but the Pathfinder machine, which has grown fat on huge subsidies, continues to peddle its discredited ideology, aided and abetted by some Housing Associations who are set to profit from the destruction.’
‘This self-interest is evident at local level where, in Liverpool for example, the clearance programme has been promoted by councillors such as Richard Kemp who chairs the board of the Housing Association-partner in the Welsh Streets area.’
‘This is not a political battle, it is about people and homes. After all, somewhere near the root of Pathfinder’s problems was New Labour’s continuation of the Tory policy of transferring poor quality and under maintained (‘low demand’) social stock to the private sector, under the guise of ‘third sector’ quasi-social landlords, and not letting elected council’s borrow to maintain or build their own homes for rent.’
SAVE’s Report makes the following recommendations:
- New funding should be targeted mainly at repair and refurbishment, and decisions placed in the control of individual occupants and owners, as were the successful area-based grant schemes 20 – 30 years ago.
- Mega-Social-Landlords driven by development ambitions must be brought under tight democratic control to make them better neighbours – 70% of their income is publicly funded grant andhousing benefit. They must be subject to Freedom of Information Act legislation, proper scrutiny and limits on their monopoly ownership of entire communities. If necessary, they should be broken back down into smaller tenant co-ops and housing associations, as was their original intent. The HCA should not be both funder and auditor.
- Area-based retro-fit to high environmental standards will help renew market confidence and generate economic opportunity in deprived areas much more effectively than expensive HMR quangos.
- The constitutional implications of Compulsory Purchase Orderpowers over private home owners need to be carefully reviewed byParliament – at present, 95% of orders are granted, with new ‘Localism’ and Big City Mayoral powers extending their reach yet further. CPO of homes should be a last resort, not a mainstream activity.
- A more respectful approach to deprived neighbourhoods that does not assume those with power necessarily know best – community regeneration should be about creative ways to revalue what is there, rather than aggressively seeking to remove it altogether. Sometimes traditional urban forms are popular simply because they work.
The Report with Introduction by Jonathan Brown and Critique by Finlay Research, is now available as 3 PDF files from: LINK
