Demolition strikes at housing figures
REGENERATION specialist Renew North Staffordshire knocked down three times as many homes as it built last year.
More than 500 houses were bulldozed by Renew, which built 146 homes in their place.
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But the agency says a further 538 properties were constructed in the key renewal areas of Meir, Hanley, Middleport, Knutton and Shelton by other organisations.
The figures were revealed in an Audit Commission report praising Renew's performance over the last financial year.
The review also reveals Renew invested £40 million of Government cash during the year, which was match-funded by other parts of the public sector.
That cash was used, in part, to knock down 502 properties, up two on the target of 500, and to acquire 452 homes, which cleared the path for demolition programmes to take place in areas such as Knutton and Cross Heath.
Although Renew refurbished 982 houses, well over its target of 800, that represented a huge fall from the 2,426 homes that were given a new look in 2007/8, and Renew has a target of just 705 refurbishments in 2009/10.
The Audit Commission report blames the shift on a change in policy.
It says: "This means fewer, but higher cost interventions are completed."
Overall, Renew – the regeneration arm of Stoke-on-Trent City Council – has been assessed as "performing strongly". It is praised for managing to maintain progress during the recession.
But Renew did receive criticism for spending Government funds, earmarked for affordable and family homes, on extra care housing.
The report adds: "Recent investment in extra care housing has helped meet local need for older persons' housing, although it is not clear in all instances whether this represented the best use of Housing Market Renewal funds."
Councillor Brian Ward, member for regeneration, said: "I welcome any report that shows the pathfinder scheme is doing well, because there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes that people don't see.
"This report shows we are delivering for the residents in the city, which I'm really pleased about, and I hope we can carry on this work.
"I understand the Audit Commission's concerns about the extra care housing developments, but we have got an older population in Stoke-on-Trent than in many other cities, and there is a genuine need for this housing here.
"Of course providing more family homes is equally important, but you really need the developers on board to push that forward and unfortunately they took their foot off the pedal due to the recession."
2 Comments
by Albert Hopkins Shirley, Melbourne Australia
Sunday, July 04 2010, 11:40AM
“Well well.
Just proves what we and other people said at the Middle Port Crown Government Inquiry 2008 said at the George Hotel
Burslem.
They tried to make out we all were people who did not have a understanding of the building industry.
Well I and my family have been in the building industry for hundreds of years NOT just like on generation like they all were and IT showed when the spoke and when a figure in the millions is a asset one time and then a few pages down the same figure is a deficit.
So as to make their side of things look good.
When squeaks smells and looks like a rat then it is a rat.
Just the same as a duck that waddles.”
by Mel, Bucknall
Thursday, March 04 2010, 4:44PM
“I don't question the need for extra care housing, just for so much of it being provided by organisations which charge so much that only pensioners reliant on state benefits can use it. And to knock down three times as much as you build, with thousands waiting for social housing, is irresponsible and short-sighted. Okay, other properties were built by other agencies; translation, lots of 'executive apartments' were built by private companies, offering neither affordable nor appropriate housing for those forced from their homes by the 'regeneration'. Renew sold our city down the river, and now there is so little interest in this 'prime' land that on Bucknall New Road they are laying decorative paving where there were sturdy terraces. Obviously if building companies can't sell what they've already built (and at the inflated prices for kennels, of course they can't), they won't want to buy land to build more. So houses go and we get left with - fancy brickwork. Diabolical.”