19 October 2007
Ministers have moved swiftly to guarantee the future of a flagship regeneration programme after a government document wrongly suggested that it was under threat.
Nine housing market renewal pathfinder schemes in the North and Midlands have already spent £1bn on demolition and improvement work since the programme got under way five years ago.
A report published by the Department for Communities and Local Government within hours of last week's Comprehensive Spending Review stated that four pathfinders would be phased out and that funding for the other five would be frozen.
But addressing the chairs of the pathfinders at a conference in Sheffield on October 11, housing minister Iain Wright apologised for his department's mistake and said the government expects to allocate 'around £1bn' during 2008/11. 'We remain completely committed to the housing market renewal programme,' he said.
Some pathfinders have run into controversy by demolishing homes against the wishes of residents. But most are poised to move on to wider regeneration, including the construction of new homes.
Max Steinberg, chief executive of Elevate, the pathfinder for East Lancashire, stressed that the pathfinder would have to match every £1m of funding with five or six times as much private finance. 'This was never a problem that public money alone could solve,' he told Public Finance.
The National Housing Federation, however, claimed that the allocation represents a 14% cut in real terms because of rising costs.
PFoct2007
