Paul Lawless

Area-based Urban Interventions: Rationale and Outcomes: The New Deal for Communities Programme in England:

It is now 40 years since the first area-based initiative (ABI) was launched in England. New Deal for Communities (NDC), announced in 1998, is one of the most ambitious of English ABIs in that it aims, over a period of 10 years, to reduce the gaps between 39 deprived areas and national standards in five outcome areas: crime, education, health, worklessness, and housing and the physical environment. Change data from the 2001-05 national evaluation are used to explore three considerations: change across the programme; drivers of mobility; and change at the partnership level. Barriers operating at the neighbourhood, city-wide and national levels have impacted on the implementation of the programme.

Locating and Explaining Area-Based Urban Initiatives: New Deal for Communities in England

It is now more than thirty years since the first area-based initiative (ABI) was launched in England. New Deal for Communities announced in 1998 is one of the most ambitious of English ABIs in that it aims over a period of ten years to close gaps between these thirty-nine areas and national standards in five outcome areas of crime, education, health, worklessness, and housing. Evidence gleaned from the national evaluation of 2002/03 helps illuminate trends and tensions within three themes which have proved central to the wider urban debate: community engagement, partnership working, and the complexity of ABIs. On the broad canvas, evidence from the evaluation suggests that institutional factors continue to impinge strongly on the programme, that the original assumption that partnerships should be given a strong degree of local flexibility and freedoms has been steadily eroded, and that the initiative as a whole sits within that raft of essentially reformist policy interventions effected by the Labour government since 1997.

Understanding Area-based Regeneration: The New Deal for Communities Programme in England

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme is an ambitious English area-based initiative which aims, over 10 years, to transform 39 deprived neighbourhoods in relation to six outcomes: crime, education, health, worklessness, housing and the community. Data indicate modest programme-wide change against benchmarks. Evidence is used to examine the validity of the programme’s four design parameters: a 10-year horizon is necessary to achieve change; holistic regeneration can help to achieve cross-outcome change; working with other agencies and having other overlapping ABIs helps change; and, having the community at the heart of the initiative enhances outcomes. Findings in relation to these design features have wider applicability across area regeneration policy.

Partnership in Urban Regeneration in the UK: The Sheffield Central Area Study

During the later 1980s, support for public-private sector partnerships came to the fore in British urban policy. This paper explores one particular manifestation of partnership in an English provincial city, the Sheffield Central Area Study, within the context of growth coalition and regime theories. Analysis of agendas adopted by partners and questions of power, suggests that existing theories do not satisfactorily account for experience within partnerships. In particular, in the British context, conceptualisations of partnership need to embrace questions such as the relatively strong position of local government and its professionalised bureaucracy, and the commensurately weaker status of the business community in general and landowners in particular.

URBAN REGENERATION AND TRANSPORT INVESTMENT: A CASE STUDY OF SHEFFIELD 1992-96

There has been little work exploring the impact of transport investment on economic regeneration at the urban scale. This lack of attention is in part related to theoretical inadequacies and methodological difficulties, not least the separating out and attribution of effects. Such issues were addressed by a major empirical study conducted in Sheffield during the early 1990s. This paper outlines the research methods adopted, which involved breaking down impacts into five thematic areas (image; property; land use; business location and operations; and labour market), and exploring the different mechanisms whereby effects might have become apparent in each. The findings from each of the themes are briefly summarised, the overall conclusion being that, in current circumstances, the impact of transport investment on regeneration is not particularly strong. In a broader policy context, however, the study also pointed to the improbability of securing regeneration benefits from transport infrastructure, given the lack of co-ordination and integration between the two policy areas, and the increasingly fragmented nature of urban governance in general.

Understanding the Scale and Nature of Outcome Change in Area-Regeneration Programmes: Evidence from the New Deal for Communities Programme in England

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme is one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) launched in England. Between 1998 and 2010 thirty-nine NDC partnerships were charged with improving conditions in relation to six outcomes within deprived neighbourhoods, each accommodating around 9800 people. Data point to only modest change, much of which reflects improving attitudes towards the area and the environment. There are problems in identifying positive people-based outcomes because relatively few individuals benefit from relevant initiatives. Few positive benefits leak out of NDC areas. Transformational change was always unlikely bearing in mind the limited nature of additional resources, and because only a minority of individuals directly engage with NDC projects. This evidence supports perspectives of ABIs rooted in ‘local managerialism’.

Geographical Variation in the Labour-Market Adjustment Process: The UK Coalfields 1981–91

During the 1980s and early 1990s the UK coal industry shed more than 90% of its workforce. In this paper we explore the consequences for different coalfields and individual districts by means of comprehensive ‘labour-market accounts’. The impact of job loss on recorded unemployment shows remarkably little variation, but this disguises considerably greater diversity in other labour-market flows. There is evidence that much unemployment has become ‘hidden’ and that the disparities between areas are much larger than official figures suggest.

Outcomes from Community Engagement in Urban Regeneration: Evidence from England's New Deal for Communities Programme

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme was one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) ever launched in England. Between 1998 and 2010, 39 NDC partnerships were charged with implementing 10-year, locally informed strategies designed to improve conditions within deprived neighbourhoods each accommodating around 9,800 people. More than any other previous English ABI, the NDC programme placed a strong emphasis on informing and engaging the 39 local communities in all aspects of the regeneration process. The programme can be seen as a laboratory within which to assess relationships between community involvement in regeneration and any associated outcomes. Change data indicates that at the area-level there is nothing to suggest NDC areas saw more change than other deprived localities, or that NDCs doing more in relation to the community dimension saw greater change than those doing less. Data showing change for individuals, however, reveals that those involved in NDC activities saw more gains than those who were not involved. This positive individual-level change is not reflected in area-level data because absolute levels of involvement remained essentially low. This was for a number of reasons, some of which relate to the evolving NDC narrative: greater control from central government, diminishing community interest in the initiative, and over-optimistic assumptions on the part of local residents as to what the programme could ever achieve.

Transport investment and regeneration. Sheffield: 1992-1997

At both national and international scales there is increasing policy debate regarding the relationships between transport investment and regeneration. Little detailed empirical work has been undertaken at the local level. Sheffield, an English provincial city, witnessed substantial transport investment in the early to mid 1990s: notably the South Yorkshire Supertram and extensive new/improved roads. A longitudinal study undertaken between 1992 and 1997 examined the effects of this investment on investors and external agents, the local development industry, existing businesses, and households. Few positive findings emerged partly because of the lack of integration amongst, and between, transport providers and development agencies.

Can area-based regeneration programmes ever work? Evidence from England's New Deal for Communities Programme

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) Programme is one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) ever launched in England. Between 1998 and 2011, 39 Partnerships were charged with improving conditions in relation to six outcomes within deprived neighbourhoods, each accommodating around 9800 people. The evaluation of the Programme points to only modest net change for NDC areas and their residents, much of which reflects improving attitudes towards the area, rather than for the people-related outcomes of health, education and worklessness. The Programmes architecture was based on four key principles each of which impacted on change. Community engagement reaped fewer benefits, and proved more problematic, than had been anticipated; working with other delivery agencies was complex, providing less in the way the way of direct financial support than was true for other English ABIs; central government impacted on change through an initial over-emphasis on spending annual financial allocations combined with a later marginalisation of ABIs; and outcome change at the neighbourhood level is anyway largely beyond the control of local regeneration schemes. Nevertheless, there are reasons why area-based regeneration schemes might be pursued, including evidence that individuals benefit from local interventions, even if such effects are difficult to measure.