Welfare Reform on the Web (July 2003): Community Regeneration and Development - UK

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GOVERNMENT REGENERATION INITIATIVES

Housing, Planning, Local Government and Regions Committee

London: TSO, 2003 (House of Commons Papers, Session 2002/03; HC76)

The committee are concerned that the proliferation of area-based single-issue initiatives may lead to bids for funding being skewed to meet the criteria of the initiative, regardless of the area's real needs. Current initiatives are also short-term, making planning difficult and problems of underspend more prevalent. Recommends that no more centrally driven initiatives should be launched, but that local authorities should develop their own regeneration plans to meet local needs. Central government should allocate resources to fund the regeneration goals identified in these plans.

FAITH IN THE URBAN REGENERATION? ENGAGING FAITH COMMUNITIES IN URBAN REGENERATION

R. Farnell and others

Bristol: Policy Press, 2003.

Looks at how mainstream regeneration programmes can engage with faith groups. Secular agencies can feel uneasy about spending limited resources on faith organisations which may only cater for their own group. On the other hand, the bureaucratic approach of regeneration organisations can deter faith groups. Regeneration professionals are also often ignorant of the difference between religious groups, and tend to confuse ethnic and faith communities.

GIVEN THE BOOT

D. Mulhearn

Guardian Society, May 28th 2003, p.6

Two years ago, an ambitious regeneration scheme promised an urban oasis for residents of the Boot housing estate in Liverpool. Author asks what went wrong?

MAPPING GRANTS TO DEPRIVED AREAS: PUTTING COMMUNITY FUND ON THE FUNDING MAP

N. Alderman, H Coombes and S Raybould

London: Community Fund, 2003

Lottery money distributed by the Community Fund is providing more than a third of all non-council funding for voluntary and community groups tackling depravation in England, according to this research from Newcastle University. The research analyses five main sources of funding:

• the Community Fund,
• the European Social Fund (ESF),
• the single regeneration budget (SRB),
• central government,
• trusts and foundations.

Local authority funding was not included. The research comes amid voluntary sector fears over the Community Fund's planned merger with another lottery distributor, the new opportunities fund.

REBALANCING COMMUNITES: INTRODUCING MIXED INCOMES INTO EXISTING RENTED HOUSING ESTATES

G. Martin and J. Watkinson

York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2003

Councils and housing associations are being urged to follow the example of the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and sell off vacant rental properties to identifiably middle-class people for the sake of creating socially mixed communities. The report extols the five year experiment on the New Earswick estate in York which it believes has stopped the community's decline by selling every second home to better off people on the open market.