David Cameron has announced the government’s intention to improve 100 of the country’s worst housing estates either by radically transforming them or, in the worst cases, knocking them down and replacing them with high-quality homes.
The government’s strategy will be supported by a £140m fund, which will be used to jump-start regeneration projects. The fund will “pump-prime the planning process” and pay for temporary rehousing and early construction costs.
But the bulk of the funding is expected to be drawn from private sector investors, including pension funds.
Writing in The Sunday Times Cameron explained that for some sink estates, “this will simply mean knocking them down and starting again. [While] for others, it might mean changes to layout, upgrading facilities and improving local road and transport links.”
A new estate regeneration advisory panel, which will be chaired by former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine, will coordinate the nationwide strategy. Its first job is to identify a list of 100 post-war estates across the country that are, in Cameron’s words, “ripe for re-development”.
“What the Savills research shows is that housing estates can deliver more homes and be made into better neighbourhoods by re-integrating them into the wider street network and creating or repairing the streetscape.”
Yolande Barnes, Savills
The panel will also establish a set of binding guarantees for tenants and homeowners so that they are protected. It will report its findings in detail by this year’s Autumn Statement.
Cameron also stated that an Estates Regeneration Strategy would be published that “will sweep away the planning blockages and take new steps to reduce political and reputational risk for projects’ key decision-makers and investors”.
Greg Clark, secretary of state for communities and local government, said: “We know the worst estates offer huge potential to be revived so that they become thriving communities and places which people want to live and work in.
“That’s why we’re so determined to kick-start work which will benefit the lives of thousands of people by providing high-quality homes.”
Cameron’s announcement comes ahead of a report from property adviser Savills, which the government says will show that this approach to regeneration could help catalyse the building of hundreds of thousands of new homes in London alone.
Yolande Barnes, Savills research director, said: “What the Savills research shows is that housing estates can deliver more homes and be made into better neighbourhoods by re-integrating them into the wider street network and creating or repairing the streetscape.
“This creates more highly valued neighbourhoods. The signs are that new developments of ‘complete streets’ cost less to build than conventional estate renewal.”
