Autonomous Geographies: littlelondonregeneration

Regenerating Little London under PFI

In February 2001, Leeds City Council (LCC) submitted an Expression of Interest to Round 2 of the government’s council housing PFI programme. LCC’s proposed scheme to refurbish Little London (and a small adjoining area of south Woodhouse) was as follows:

Improve 1547 Council owned homes and shops to achieve modern standards, improve safety, security, thermal efficiency and environment with programmed renewals and cyclical works for the life of the contract;

Demolish 46 unpopular maisonettes, and dispose of the site/s for replacement with popular family housing;

Dispose of or lease for the contract period (or a combination of both) 379 multi-story flats in three blocks for middle market rent or sale. These to be outside the Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) for the duration of the contract ;

Provide a comprehensive repair and maintenance, cleaning, caretaking and security service to Council owned homes and the environment (LCC 2001a:3-4).

The bulk of improvements to homes, shops and the environment would be carried out in the first five years of the contract, with some environment works scheduled for years six to ten. Demolitions would be carried out in year 1. LCC proposed to keep rental collection, allocations and lettings, tenancy and estate management services in-house, but would invite bids encompassing those services in keeping with a Best Value approach. It would also retain strategic responsibility for decisions about the extent and location of initiatives offering support to individual tenants.

Clearly, LCC’s proposed PFI scheme for Little London was far more ambitious and dramatic than simply refurbishing Council homes and improving the area, as it would initially claim to tenants and residents (see consultation). Its aim was instead to significantly reduce its Council stock in the area, encourage new private housing developments and change the social mix of residents in favour of a more affluent middle market group in order to “maintain demand for flats from a diverse customer group where applicants needing support do not predominate (emphasis added)” (LCC 2001a:11).

Most significant of all was LCC’s aim to demolish some high-rise blocks and sell off, or lease, several more in order to “offer the private sector the opportunity to improve selected blocks of multi-story flats and to recoup their investment through middle market (emphasis added) rent or sales” (LCC 2001a:5). LCC argued that this would help it to change the social mix of the area in order to “maximise the market potential of the area, to both sustain future demand for Council homes from a wide range of customers, whilst opening up the area for middle market rent and/or sale” (LCC 2001a:2). LCC was confident that private investment would be attracted to the multi-story flats proposed for disposal if LCC was able to promise “a comprehensive package of improvements for its own stock. Such investment would give the whole area uplift and increase its attractiveness to the private sector” (LCC 2001a:5).

The Evolution of Regeneration Proposals

The progress of the Little London PFI scheme was delayed between 2002 and 2005 due to tenants’ initially voting against the scheme (see consultation), and the government’s doubts about the affordability and manageability of the scheme. In February 2006, a new regeneration proposal was unveiled, called Comprehensive Regeneration. 912 council homes would be refurbished and maintained to ‘above Decency standards’, 297 high rise council flats would be sold off to private developers for refurbishment as ‘affordable’ flats for sale and between 140 and 152 council homes would be demolished with the released land being used to provide 125 new council homes and 90 private homes. A re-designed central area was proposed with a new layout for the shops, potential for a new medical surgery, community centre and other local services. Major refurbishment work would take approximately five years from the start of the contract date.

A second regeneration option was also put forward by LCC due to changes in UK government policy. The Decent Homes Option would use the ALMO’s £20m capped funding approved by central government to bring all Council-owned properties up to the government’s promised minimum Decency Standard level by 2010. So only homes that needed a new kitchen, new windows, new bathroom, heating, doors and insulation would get them. There would also be communal facilities provided in blocks of flats, but there would be little or no expenditure on homes that already met the Decent Homes standard. Its advantages were that work could start almost immediately, the vast majority council housing stock would be retained, there would be very little in way of demolitions and it was unlikely that many people would have to leave the estate.

In May 2006, LCC Executive Board approved the Comprehensive Regeneration scheme under PFI for Little London. In the PFI Outline Business Case passed by the May 2006 LCC Executive Board, LCC changed the proposed PFI contract from 30 to 20 years. This would probably mean that “new kitchens, windows etc. would not be replaced for a second time during the lifetime of the contract” (LCC 2006: 14). A second change concerned the Lovells flats, which LCC had previously proposed would be refurbished for sale or rent, but now would be refurbished for sale only. However, in December 2006, LCC announced that the proposed sale to a developer of the three Lovells tower blocks, containing 297 flats, had been put on hold pending a review and fresh consultation. In October 2007, LCC confirmed that the Lovell towers would be retained and refurbished as Council homes subject to a successful bid for funding to central government.

At the time of writing, the PFI scheme, which was put out to tender in July 2007, is currently in the procurement phase and physical regeneration work is not expected to begin until early 2010, a full nine years after Leeds City Council first applied to the housing PFI scheme.

General regeneration blueprint

Overall, we can see from the above analysis that underpinning LCC’s regeneration plans since February 2001 has been a core blueprint that has remained throughout, despite two phases of consultation. The blueprint contains the following core features:

to improve and maintain the majority of the area’s Council homes and the surrounding environment, shops and community facilities over a 30 year period;
to demolish a significant number of council homes and sell the cleared land to developers for redevelopment of new family homes for a mix of social housing for rent and owner occupation;

to sell, or dispose for 30 years, several high rise blocks containing hundreds of council flats to developers to turn them into middle market flats for rent or sale.

In other words, regeneration is clearly aimed at, and based on, reconstructing the local housing market to enable house prices and rents to rise in line with city averages and reflect the true market value of their prime city centre location. LCC wants to alter the socio-economic mix in the local population by demolishing out some of the poorest and most vulnerable tenants and building in a wealthier stream of upwardly mobile residents as part of its city centre regeneration drive.

References

LCC (2001a), ‘Private Finance Initiative for Housing Revenue Account, Round 2. Expression of Interest, Little London, Leeds’, February 2001

LCC (2006), ‘Report of the Director of Neighbourhoods and Housing to Executive Board; Subject: Little London Housing Private Finance Initiative – Outline Business Case’, 17 May, Appendix 18.2

Autonomous Geographies

Regenerating Little London under PFI

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