Resurrecting regeneration

Will levelling-up lead to a new interest in regeneration projects?

Almost 20 years ago, as The Consultation Institute was opening its doors, one of the most visible themes in the public sector was urban regeneration. Following from well-publicised heroics by Michael Heseltine in Merseyside and the imaginative redevelopment of Docklands in London, many cities had their own version, complete with armies of planners, architects, builders, of course, community development staff.

The thinking was that such wholesale redevelopment required a considered vision of the kind of communities that you are seeking to build. Hence the term regeneration. The idea was that the replacement of old-style infrastructure would be successful only if the resulting communities enjoyed better life prospects, had a cohesive sense of identity and the new generations of residents or workers were comfortable with their new surroundings.

When austerity hit the UK, local authorities in particular, were obliged to slash their budgets. Simultaneously there was suddenly a problem in raising capital for major large-scale development projects and as a result, wide-angle urban regeneration abruptly stopped. Only in London, with the 2012 Olympics imminent, was there a will and the means to galvanise a city and harness skills and expertise on a grand enough scale to effect massive change. Even today, the legacy of that enterprise remains, and is probably the sole surviving example of the regeneration thinking that lasted for several years around the turn of the century. Elsewhere, though, and in many of our northern cities, the dreams were put on hold, and the last decade was one of treading water for many of them. Instead we have a plethora of smaller, less ambitious projects thanks to the Towns Fund and similar initiatives. It is one of many reasons why the cry went up for ‘levelling up’.

So what was it about the better forms of urban regeneration that marked them out as being rather special? New building materials and bold designs certainly marked a welcome shift from the post-war love affair with concrete. But many will argue that what really mattered was the involvement of local residents before, during and indeed after construction. The better schemes were built with local input. Designs were rarely imposed upon communities and those with needs and priorities were accommodated to a greater extent than before. Dialogues like this have always been a preferred way to proceed. But they can only happen with a supply of well-trained community development staff who know how to work with local people, no matter how diverse.

Good community participation does not have to be on mega-projects. Becky Hirst, the Australia-based champion of public engagement enjoys telling everyone how the most routine and mundane aspects of people’s lives lend themselves to a bottom-up approach – obliging public bodies to be more responsive and develop services according to the preferences of customers/clients rather than what the ‘system’ may have served up for years.

That sounds like co-production. But can you really regenerate run-down areas of major cities using co-production? In other words, can you co-regenerate?

Arguably, it is the only viable way of doing things. Many experts readily acknowledge this. Success is increasingly seen as improving not just the urban landscape and the physical infrastructure but the lives of local people and the outcomes they experience. It was once thought that this investment would yield more and better jobs, but as the LSE’s Professor Overman has recently demonstrated, this is has not necessarily been achieved.

So, if this is really about creating better outcomes – and not just shiny new buildings – there is no way it can be done without the active involvement of current and, if possible, future residents. Expect them to be apprehensive. Their lives will be disrupted. Years of building work will cause mess and inconvenience. There will be arguments about what goes where? And what happens to that new school, or the old surgery or the new bus station? Who decides? Who is accountable? And who will speak for the new communities?

These are not fortnight-long dialogues. They are not a single consultation. They will last years. And so widespread the impacts, a few meetings with the usual suspects won’t begin to crack it. The full extent of the community’s diversity, and the full range of interest groups require continuous engagement – and probably in different ways. Some will be digital; rather a lot will be of the traditional face-to-face kind. Whoever is neglected is an additional risk to the regeneration programme.

In the coming days, the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda may make much of further regeneration. It may possibly couple this with the need for all communities – everywhere - to build back better – or build forward for a net zero world. Critics will argue that there is not enough money, or that only cosmetic change will happen. But the Institute believes that the real achievement will be to re-focus on the real objective – to transform areas of disadvantage and decline and make life better for those who live and work there. Top-down imposition of clever plans won’t work. Only by deep and genuine dialogue with communities can such aims be met. And we need to build and encourage the skills to facilitate this.

TRIGGER POINTS

1. Can you see evidence of high-quality regeneration in your area?
2. What makes such initiatives stand out? Who benefits?
3. Professor Overman’s is one of the authors of The local economic impacts of regeneration projects: Evidence from UK’s single regeneration budget (2021). See it at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/108233/3/1_s2.0_S0094119020300863_main.pdf
4. Institute Associates are well-equipped to assist Councils and developers prepare and deliver engagement plans and public consultations that will be essential for successful regeneration
5. Learn more about continuous engagement. Talk to Sheena Ahmed at the Institute office for details of training and support.

This is the 375th Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement.