16 May 2003
Anyone who thought that urban development corporations were as dead as the Thatcher government that created them should think again.
More than five years after the last generation of UDCs closed, one is about to be born in Thurrock, in the Thames Gateway, under the same legislation that the Conservatives used to create the dozen or so 1980s corporations.
Local authorities complained loudly about them then, as they had to surrender planning and compulsory purchase powers to business-led quangos.
But Thurrock Borough Council has not only welcomed the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's proposal for a UDC, it was instrumental in devising it.
So is the Essex authority letting the side down?
Councils have put a lot of effort into convincing Whitehall that they can lead regeneration without having quangos imposed on them, and might be suspicious of Thurrock's enthusiasm.
Stephen Weigel, the council's corporate director of regeneration, admits: 'Realistically, if we had not agreed to this, something less attractive would have been imposed on us.'
The ODPM's justification for the UDC is that Thurrock has 'a wide range of complex land-use and land-assembly problems which constrain housing and economic growth'.
The 'scale and intensity of the task of land assembly and site preparation' is so difficult, even by the standards of the Thames Gateway, that a UDC is needed with 'its single-minded focus, planning powers and ability to generate increased private investor confidence', it says.
If all goes smoothly, the UDC could be at work this autumn.
Weigel explains: 'There have been talks between our council leader, Andy Smith, and the ODPM since December. It is going to be very important to Thurrock in delivering jobs and homes and protecting the local economy.'
But what can the UDC do that Thurrock could not do itself?
Weigel says: 'We have planning powers, but those are bound by legislation and Best Value rules. A single body with a single board will be able to deliver our targets faster.'
The new UDC will take over strategic planning throughout Thurrock, not just the industrial area along the Thames, with the council exercising other planning powers under a service level agreement. The ODPM believes the whole area must be covered since there is high deprivation in the council's green belt.
The 15-strong board is expected to have seven local authority members and include organisations that form part of the local strategic partnership. So it will be less business-dominated than the original UDCs.
'Thurrock will lose some powers but gets the opportunity to influence the UDC, which will get the work done faster and to a higher quality,' says Weigel. 'The old UDCs had the problem that they were just about buildings, not about sustainable communities. We are talking about ensuring community cohesion.'
This confidence is not wholly shared by Tony Rich, the Local Government Association's regeneration policy officer.
He points out that the old UDCs concentrated on physical regeneration, and that Thurrock emphasises building sustainable communities.
'If they were just reviving UDCs as before, we would be concerned, although this appears to be somewhat different,' says Rich. 'But the tension is around giving up democratic control of planning. For example, in the LDDC [London Docklands Development Corporation] the councils had to vest all the land to a business-dominated board.'
Rich adds: 'It is odd. Ministers seem quite keen, but what is Thurrock getting that they don't have now? I could understand it more if it were an odd area that crossed boundaries, but this is one council. And where is the extra funding for infrastructure?'
Although the ODPM says that Thurrock, and a proposed UDC for east London, are special responses to particularly intractable problems, will ministers be able to restrain themselves from 'suggesting' UDCs elsewhere?
PFmay2003
