Tue 11 Mar 2008
Relocating to regenerate
Regenerating an entire community has one major challenge - relocating families. Roger Hunt discusses the obstacles involved.Among the most commonly used words in the regeneration lexicon is 'challenging' and perhaps the most challenging aspect of regeneration is dealing with the people who live within the affected area. At the very least they will have their lives disrupted; at worst they will have to be relocated or 'decanted', albeit temporarily, to make the process possible.
For the local authorities, housing associations and housebuilders involved, moving people out of their existing homes is about much more than simply rehousing them. If the regenerating process is to be successful, it requires wholehearted commitment, careful planning and empathy with the needs and aspirations of each and every individual involved.
Alongside the task of relocation there is also the need to integrate these existing communities with the new residents who will come into the regeneration area, some of whom may be buying on the private market. Introducing private properties into regeneration schemes is a key incentive for housebuilders and has two significant and proven benefits: it generates essential funds to subsidise the regeneration programme and helps balance the profile of residential occupancy in the areas.
One company tackling these issues is REAL. Launched by Rydon Construction, it is a regeneration brand created to sell open market properties developed in conjunction with major urban regeneration programmes. It works in partnership with local authorities, registered social landlords (RSLs), government agencies and other public bodies.
For REAL director Mark Mitchener, an essential first step in any regeneration scheme is the creation of a masterplan. "We then have to break the masterplan down into the decanting and phasing aspects of the project. There are a host of things that come into play when you cut and carve an existing estate, demolish areas and put in what is, at the end of the day, a completely new footprint."
In London, on the Packington Estate, Islington, REAL is helping Hyde Housing Association replace poor housing stock with 840 new, mixed-tenure homes, together with retail and leisure facilities, in a project which will be divided into six phases over a period of almost nine years. In working towards achieving the masterplan, existing residents have to be moved more than once but the project has benefited from the fact that a large number of the existing properties are empty. "One of the incentives for people moving twice was that we would move them into a void that we had fully refurbed so they were immediately into something that was of a Decent Homes Standard; something much nicer than they were currently in," says Mitchener.
An added incentive is that, from this accommodation, residents will be able to move straight into a new home in the first phase of the development. Eventually the temporary refurbished properties will be demolished but each refurbished flat should be used three or four times for decants. Even so, Mitchener makes it clear that there is no danger of the masterplan being compromised because of the need to keep some homes and people in place.
He goes on to emphasise that 'selling' the masterplan to residents is a key factor in successful relocation. "There is a large amount of tenant consultation and presentation of ideas, getting them to buy into the whole masterplan and listening to their requests. The consultation starts well before planning, before we put pen to paper, because the people that have lived there for many years actually know what the issues are. Therefore you can learn an awful lot about how they live, what is important to them, what hasn't worked and what the problems are, so a lot of those elements can be addressed in the new masterplan."
In Manchester, Suzanne Price, director of neighbourhoods for New East Manchester, also emphasises the importance of consultation and says that retaining the existing community is fundamental. "We engage with the developers and the local residents at a very early stage and, in most instances, the residents are actually involved in the selection process of the developers. "There is a process that we go through called neighbourhood planning which is very much about sitting down with the developer, with the residents around the table, to talk through the masterplan that we are going to be preparing and to look at what is achievable."
Price points out that this is only the beginning. "It is also about keeping in touch with residents; both those that are being relocated, as part of the rolling programme in the area, and those new residents that are coming in and are going to be part of establishing a community for the future. It is very much making sure that living on a building site is not traumatic and people don't end up regretting being trail blazers in terms of moving into an area. There is still very much an on going dialogue between ourselves, the developer and the residents throughout this period."
The story is similar in North Solihull. At around 1,000 acres, the regeneration area is a large former local authority run housing estate and home to around 40,000 people. A 15 year private/public partnership will see £1.8 billion invested to create 8,000 new mixed-tenure homes (a net gain of 4,500), improve 12,500 existing homes and create schools and other amenities and infrastructure. Bellway Homes is the housebuilding partner for at least the first 50% of new homes on the scheme while Whitefriars Housing Group is the RSL undertaking the consultation process for the Partnership.
What singles out the Regenerating North Solihull project is that it is being carried out with 40,000 residents in situ. As a consequence, resident implementation groups have been established to involve the local community in discussions on how the regeneration should be implemented. With the scheme taking place in partnership with the community, it has been crucial to maintain local support with extensive consultation and a constant flow of up to date information about the project.
"You do need to be open and honest with people," says Ian Cox, managing director of Bellway City Solutions. "You need to tell them what may happen at the earliest possible time and then keep talking to them up until the dates that anything really happens. It's not just a one off token public consultation exercise, it is actually one to one, getting to know people, getting to know what their housing situation is, getting to know what their housing aspirations are."
This process has been coupled with a very carefully thought through logistical exercise so it has been vital that people have understood what is about to happen to them as well as the benefits and the disruption which will undoubtedly occur.
As Cox explains, this is very resource hungry. "You can't do this with a normal housebuilder or construction company set up; you do need to have a dedicated team which is what the Regenerating North Solihull project has. We have sufficient people on the ground to be able to deal with all of that public consultation, all of the preplanning, all of the technical issues which are associated with building in the middle of an existing community."
At the same time, Cox is keen to emphasise that this must be matched by expertise. "It is based on a track record of an experienced team and actually being honest with people; truth and trust are fundamentally important to making it work."
At £35 million, a somewhat smaller but nonetheless complicated scheme to rehouse residents from more than 600 'temporary' prefabs, split over seven estates in Newport, has recently been completed by Lovell for Newport Housing Trust. Over a five year period 500 new bungalows were built and, in the process, the communities, made up of tenants and owner-occupiers who had an average age of 75, had to be maintained.
Early involvement with the residents gave the development team a picture of individual resident's health and outlook. This information was the key to planning individual building phases and the associated temporary home logistics for affected residents. Linking the masterplan to individual resident's needs was complex with the overall 'chess game' monitored and controlled using a 'decant phasing matrix'.
The development areas were split into a total of 25 separate phases. Three types of temporary accommodation were utilised: refurbished prefabs, new bungalow plots, which were designated as temporary decant properties, and mobile homes. Everything was done to support the residents and make the move process as easy as possible for them, including packing and unpacking, a choice of new carpets and curtains for their new homes and mail re-direction.
At REAL, Mark Mitchener explains that the company works in a similar way and has a team of resident liaison officers. "Everything is done for the residents; we go through an information pack with them, we sort out the disconnections of their services, the reconnections, the furniture removal, even looking after some pets." First published in Show House Magazine March 2008.
The greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy but some information contained within this article may have changed since it was first published.
Posted by Roger Hunt
in Features on Tue 11 Mar 2008
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