Pathfinder Building Programme Faces Collapse says FT

The Financial Times has ended the year with a bleak predition for the 11 demolition zones of the north. It uses Bellway in Walker as an example where just 52 new houses have been built in an estate that should have been 3 times as big.

This follows the FT report of a National Audit Office investigation of pathfinder that found it did almost the same as taking no action whatsoever. Meanwhile housing policy of both government and local authorities has led to a shortage of social housing and longer waiting lists.

Gateshead Council is still continuing with it's mass demolition policy as if it were in a time warp stuck in 1997 when John Prescott conceived the pathfinder scheme - a policy Prescott now says was mistaken.

Link
FT Article (4th Dec 2008)