Housing Market Renewal

This NAO report examines the Government programme of Housing Market Renewal, established to tackle problems of acute low housing demand in the North of England and the Midlands. Neighbourhood decline and deprivation has resulted where there are high concentrations of properties that are difficult to let or sell, where there is a loss of population and an inability to attract new households. Nine new sub-regional partnerships or "pathfinders" were set up, with considerable freedom in determining their approach to low housing demand. The NAO has set out a number of recommendations, including: the Department of Communities and Local Government should clarify arrangements for the delivery of the Housing Market Renewal programme alongside local authority housing market assessments; the Department should also clarify the role of Government Offices in helping to support regional delivery as well as the terms of reference for both Government Offices and the Department in matters of leadership, oversight and monitoring of the programme; the Department should be clearer about its expectations for the renewal programme's contribution to delivering non-housing regeneration, such as better schools, transport and neighbourhood management; that any Housing Market Renewal demolition schemes are based on up-to-date market analysis; the Department should also clarify how it is expected to achieve alignment with regional strategies for higher housing growth; the Department should also develop the performance framework, including value for money indicators and that there should be a comparison of outcomes between low demand areas subject to Housing Market Renewal and those low demand areas that are not.

Housing Market Renewal and Social Class critically examines the rationale for housing market renewal: to develop ‘high value’ housing markets in place of so-called ‘failing markets’ of low cost housing.

The academic and policy interest in the development of cities, the renewal of residential and older industrial neighbourhoods in cities, and issues to do with race, polarisation and inequality in cities has remained at the forefront of policy and academic debate across Europe and North America. This book provides an important new contribution to these debates and highlights specific issues and developments which are crucial to an understanding of debates about residence, renewal and community empowerment. engages with the urban regeneration, development and housing aspects of real estate places debates on polarisation, inequality and race in a city-based structure provides up-to-date account of policy developments

This timely report provides an informed assessment of one of the most innovative urban policy initiatives in a generation - the Housing Market Renewal programme - which aims to renew and restructure 'at risk' housing markets through an ambitious suite of interventions ranging from planning measures to housing stock demolition and replacement, and from community development to dealing with anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood stigma. Based on the first stock take the programme, The road to renewal presents an independent account of the genesis of the programme, and examines the rationale behind the case for a more strategic approach to tackling housing markets at risk of failure. It includes a detailed account of the proposals for market renewal submitted by eight of the nine Pathfinders selected in the first phase of the programme, pointing out strengths and weaknesses of each, and the authors make suggestions about the future development of the programme.

Housing market renewal is one of the most controversial urban policy programmes of recent years. Housing Market Renewal and Social Class critically examines the rationale for housing market renewal: to develop 'high value' housing markets in place of the so-called 'failing markets' of low-cost housing. Whose interests are served by such a programme and who loses out? Drawing on empirical evidence from Liverpool, the author argues that housing market renewal plays to the interests of the middle classes in viewing the market for houses as a field of social and economic 'opportunities', a stark contrast to a working class who are more concerned with the practicalities of 'dwelling'. Against this background of these differing attitudes to the housing market, Housing Market Renewal and Social Class explores the difficult question of whether institutions are now using the housing market renewal programme to make profits at the expense of ordinary working-class people. Reflecting on how this situation has come about, the book critically examines the purpose of current housing market renewal policies, and suggests directions for interested social scientists wishing to understand the implications of the programme. Housing Market Renewal and Social Class provides a unique phenomenological understanding of the relationship between social class and the market for houses, and will be compelling reading for anybody concerned with the situation of working class people living in UK cities.