05 December 2008
By Paul Dicken
Efforts to regenerate England's former coalfields have led to new jobs and physical renewal, the Audit Commission has said.
In a report, A mine of opportunities, the spending watchdog looked at the impact of regeneration efforts over the past ten years. This focused on the 34 local authority areas in England most affected by pit closures, including Barnsley, Ashfield and South Tyneside.
Audit Commission chair Michael O'Higgins told Public Finance the commission had chosen authorities 'that had very similar devastating economic changes'.
The report, published on November 27, found progress had been made on improving the environment and building new homes, roads and commercial sites. However, these areas continued to suffer 'endemic problems of bad health, poor school results, poor motivation and low skills'.
O'Higgins said: 'Job creation has definitely been pretty good but not all the jobs have gone to people who lived in the community previously.'
He said that the conclusions could be considered 'double-edged'. Although the creation of new jobs was important for longer-term regeneration, as it attracted people into the areas, a lack of skills meant people in resident communities were not often able to get those jobs.
O'Higgins said that the physical transformation had been important, especially for attracting businesses, but raising individual and community aspirations was the harder aspect of regeneration.
The report said there were 'important lessons to be learned from the history of coalfield regeneration that should be applied to the coming recession'. It cited the lack of action in the 1980s and early 1990s as responsible for increasing benefit dependency and ingraining many of the social problems now facing communities.
'Early action is key as it prevents economic issues translating into deep-seated social problems,' the report added.
The commission argued that resources for regeneration had largely come from national and European Union level, but added that local authorities had made important contributions to changes, especially those that had worked together and listened to their communities.
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