Developer Gives It Away

This week Channel 4 broadcast another programme in the "Secret Millionaire" series. The premise is that very rich people live in poor areas for 10 days and then donate some of their wealth to worthy causes without the recipients knowing they are wealthy.

This week a millionaire property developer was placed in the pathfinder demolition zone of Salford.

His business is to knock property down and rebuild at a profit. Now he was face to face with the kind of community he normally destroyed.

At one point he says that as a developer he doesn't want any "social housing" on a new development because it devalues the development and makes less profit. However meeting the people who benefit from social housing began to change is mind and he donated £20,000 to help people fight for their homes.

Of course the unspoken tragedy of this that politicians believe that developers are partners and friends. They talk about 25% social housing in pathfinder areas whereas developers look at social housing as a blight on profit.

When will politicians grow up and learn that private enterprise for profit is not an extension of social services. Shareholder need will come first and the public need will always come last.

Pathfinder is as useful as doing nothing - NAO Report

The National Audit Office published a report last week on pathfinder. It concluded that after spending £2.2 billion the flagship government project could have had the same result by doing nothing.

Controversially it said what Saltwell and Bensham Residents have been saying - that the economic improvement in the north has been driving house prices not pathfinder.

The figures are amazing. Over 37,000 demolitions compared with just 40,000 renovation projects. In stark contrast to the Leader of Gateshead Council claiming that pathfinder was 95% about renovation the NAO finds that it was only about 55% renovation.

The NAO could find no link between the work of pathfinder and rising house prices.

The promise of pathfinder was to lower rates of unoccupied housing. In fact in the Newcastle and Gateshead area the NAO found unoccupied housing had gone up by 1%.

One of the key recommendations is;

"a residents’ representative group is established for the targeted demolition zone, with a committee comprising street representatives from each street in the zone, with a clear remit to change proposals if necessary"

In reality here in Gateshead no such funding has been made available and our residents association has been refused a grant.

The NAO also said about surveys of residents;

"using terms that are clear (avoiding euphemisms such as ‘redevelopment’ or ‘regeneration’ when what is meant is demolition)"

Of course that now infamous Gateshead Council consultation dutifully avoided the word demolition at all times.

Had the NAO recommendations been in force during the flawed residents consultation in this area then the council would have certainly not found support for mass demolition.

The most generous thing that the NAO have said is that it isn't clear pathfinder has made any difference at all. However you have to bear in mind that the NAO allow the Government the chance to comment on their reports behind closed doors before it is published. With such a damning published report you are left wondering how the first draft read!

The NAO conclude;

"there is no guarantee that intervening in the housing market in this way will address the causes rather than the symptoms of the problems experienced in these neighbourhoods."

In short pathfinder has the same value as doing nothing but costs far more.


Link
NAO Pathfinder Report

Democracy: How it works in Gateshead

Gateshead Planning Committee met today. This is the committee that decides whether Gateshead Council have the right to start demolishing people's homes. Bear in mind that Gateshead Council will benefit from this by creating a large chunk of brownfield land to sell on to developers.

Councillors are used to these meetings being pretty automatic. They provide a short time for people to object, they pin a few notices in the area, then the committee meets in a morning when most people are at work so few ordinary citizens can attend. If you do want to attend you have to give up some of your annual holiday and you might get 3 minutes in front of the committee.

So when concerned residents turn up you would have thought that they would be treated with courtesy and given wide latitude to bring any objection before the committee. Attending Gateshead Council Planning Committee would not come in the list of "100 favourite leisure activities" and most political parties claim they want to encourage the active citizen.

A representative of Saltwell and Bensham Residents Association arrived to object and was greeted with the Chairman's instruction "OK you have got your 3 minutes get on with it". Instead of welcoming an invitation for debate the councillors were annoyed that voters had turned up to ask questions. The councillors representing the area most effected by demolition sat in stoney silence and said nothing about their constituents concerns. Some opposition members did ask questions including the rather important one of how many "affordable" homes would be built and how long was the land going to be left green before development started.

At one stage our representative was moved to say that the information being given by planning officers had been asked for months ago. For this intervention the Chairman threatened to have her thrown out of the meeting - so much for public scrutiny. Our rep did suggest that maybe and independent body should really look at the planning application because Gateshead Council had an interest the outcome. This suggestion went down like a lead balloon.

So democracy in Gateshead works like this. You provide short consultation periods so the public has difficulty responding. You organise meetings in the middle of the working day when it's difficult to attend. You try to make sure no real questions are asked and no debate happens. You make sure party hacks pack the committee so the outcome of the vote is well-known in advance.

Is there any surprise why the general public is cynical about politics!