UK NEWS
£2.2BN PATHFINDER PLANS CRITICISED
A £2.2 billion Government plan to improve the housing market in deprived areas of the Midlands and north of England has taken a "high-risk" approach and created "heightened stress" in some neighbourhoods earmarked for demolition, according to a report.
The chairman of an influential MPs' committee said that many residents felt that the authorities had "ridden roughshod" over their communities, with little clear evidence of improvements as a result.
Some 40,000 properties have been refurbished, 10,200 demolished and 1,100 built as part of the nine Pathfinder projects launched by then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in 2002 in an effort to revive neighbourhoods where poor housing stock had created a vicious circle of decline, depopulation and deprivation.
By the likely completion of the Housing Market Renewal programme in 2018, Pathfinders expect to demolish 57,100 properties - a reduction from the initially-planned 90,000 - and commission 67,600 new homes.
The report by the National Audit Office found that low demand for housing was now less severe in the Pathfinder neighbourhoods, which have narrowed the house-price gap with surrounding areas.
But it said it was "not possible to identify a causal link" between the Pathfinder activities and these changes in the housing market, which may be due to other factors, such as the influx of workers from eastern Europe moving into cheap housing in run-down neighbourhoods.
Meanwhile, there were concerns that in some areas, the Pathfinders tried to press ahead with demolition projects before engaging sufficiently with local people to explain their plans.
Landlords in some areas bought up empty houses earmarked for demolition in the hope of making a profit from compulsory purchase orders, adding an average cost to Pathfinder projects of £10,000 per property affected, and pushing up the overall bill by £50 million over five years, found the report.
And it said that residents forced to leave their homes under compulsory purchase orders found that there was an average £35,000 gap between the compensation they received and the amount needed to buy a suitable alternative property.
A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "Significant progress has been made, and we are confident that this programme will continue to revitalise some of our most deprived neighbourhoods in the years ahead."
MIDDLESBROUGH EXECUTIVE STRIKES BACK
15.11.07, 9:55am
Once upon a time it was resolved to have a boat race between a CUT/ Home Regeneration Team and a team representing the MBRO EXEC,
Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance. On the big day they were as ready as they could be.
The CUT / Home Regeneration Team won by a mile.
Afterwards the MBRO EXEC team became very discouraged by the result and morale sagged. Senior management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, and an expensive working party was set up at a very high quality hotel to investigate the problem and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was that the CUT / Regeneration Team had eight people rowing and one person steering, whereas the MBRO EXEC team had eight people steering and one person rowing.
Senior management immediately hired a more expensive consultancy company to do a study on the team's structure. Hundreds of Thousands of pounds and several months later they concluded that: "Too many people were steering and not enough rowing."
To prevent losing to CUT / Home Regeneration Team the next year, the team structure was changed to three "Assistant Steering Managers", three "Steering Managers", one "Executive Steering Manager" and a "Director of Steering Services". A performance and appraisal system was set up to give the person rowing the boat more incentive to work harder.
The next year CUT /Home Regeneration Team won by two miles.
Following this, the MBRO EXEC laid off the rower for poor performance, sold off all the paddles, cancelled all capital investment in new equipment, and halted development of a new canoe. The money saved was used to fund higher than average pay awards to senior management.
• Posted by: rightsaidfred • Report Comment
MIDDLESBROUGH MOVING FORWARD BY DEMOLISHING SOUND AND SOLID HOUSING
14.11.07, 2:39pm
So now that the NAO has labelled the pathfinder scheme officially as a failure, a waste of money and of no benefit - 1. how long before the scheme is officially scrapped ?, 2. how long afterwards will MBC, the executive and the dear leader continue insisting that the project will go ahead ?. 3. before the next council election will the whole matter be persona non grata for the labour councillors who will seek to lay the blame for the whole fiasco and loss of monies on the independents and those opposed to the systematic sterilization of those pesky low earning Middlesbrough town centre residents because they just wouldn't shut up about "those people" losing their homes ?. You see its their own fault for not letting the dear leader and his minions do as they wilt
• Posted by: rightsaidfred • Report Comment
SOUND AND SOLID HOUSING TO GO IN MIDDLESBROUGH
14.11.07, 7:58am
Prescott Housing Scheme picks pockets for £2bn
Tax payers have had their pockets picked to fund a hair brained scheme called Pathfinder.
It may have left residents worse off it has been claimed by the Chairman of the influential committee of MP’s.
John Prescott the then deputy Prime Minister thought up this mad high risk strategy
Middlesbrough Borough Council jumped on the band wagon their bright idea to improve the town centre was to demolish sound and solid housing in the town centre
1500 homes planned to be demolished and the rebuilding up to 750 so called dwellings
This to the lay person is another name for flats
A £ 300.0000 publicly funded survey was set aside as it identified another town area known as Southfield to hold the worst examples of housing in Middlesbrough
But the location of Southfield was no good to big business so Gresham was selected
Then a no go area for demolition was found around Bow Street which was hurriedly deselected for demolition
Leaving the anomaly of one side of a street was to stay up whilst the other has to come down strange how one side of a street can be unfit yet the other OK
MBC are now embarked on a scheme to force resident’s out by their Buying up and Boarding perfectly good homes in order to fulfill lies and deceit all at a time when the people of the UK cry out for affordable homes
One of the outcomes of the report is that the Tory Shadow Local Government has stated the Taxpayer is bankrolling a poorly thought through scheme
the sheer scale of the Demolitions under Pathfinder is Environmentally socially and financially wasteful
The pathfinder programme has failed its key objective of Regeneration of deprived areas
• Posted by: rightsaidfred • Report Comment
BUYING HOMES FOR THE FISRT TIME
09.11.07, 7:29am
to help people get on the property ladder here is a few suggestions - bring back MIRAS (tax relief on mortgages) ,stop drowning people in ever increasing ammounts of tax ,cut the red tape associated with buying a home,get rid of the HIPS packs, mind you was it not Gordon Brown who stopped tax relief on mortgages,was it not Gordon Brown who has destroyed peoples financial independence with massive tax increases as Chancellor? ,now he is Prime Minister and will need the general publics votes to keep his job (unlike when he was Chancellor) he is suddenly the home owners friend!!!!!!!!.
• Posted by: jonG • Report Comment
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