regeneration | ukwatch.net

A colourful revolution

JamieSW — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:15:03 +0000

In Stokes Croft, once dubbed ‘Bristol’s forgotten half mile’, a quiet but colourful revolution is taking place. A loose coalition, the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC), is using public art to transform an area that used to be emblematic of urban decline.

For Chris Chalkley, the one-man dynamo behind the scheme, art has the power to give the district a greater sense of community, and turn it into Bristol’s ‘cultural quarter’. ‘It’s possible that groups of people could come together to form an alternative vision for the area,’ Chris enthuses, as he takes us on a whistle-stop tour of a few of the ‘street galleries’ that have sprung up across Stokes Croft.

Shop fronts, walls and even an electricity sub-station have been adorned with striking images by local artists. Almost anything can be turned into a feature of the area, Chris says. Even mundane objects like drainpipes and litter bins can impart a feeling of identity, safety and vibrancy when they have been decorated with eye-catching, unique designs.

The PSRC is funded and organised almost entirely by Chris himself. Having run a china shop for 25 years, he does not think of himself as either an activist or artist, and relies on local artists to donate their time. In April, around 20-30 volunteers painted the inside of a railway tunnel just outside Stokes Croft. In a single weekend, it became a canvas for myriad different designs. There is no doubting the potential of Bristol’s artists, which is only beginning to be harnessed.

Dissatisfaction and blight

The PRSC has grown out of a need to change the face of the area, and dissatisfaction with the council’s response to its problems. Connecting the shopping centre of the city with more affluent areas to the north, Stokes Croft is a mixture of residential buildings and shops that line the main road. While a number of its buildings are listed, about 30 are derelict, such as a three-storey carriage works from the area’s Victorian heyday, which has stood empty since 1979. A further blight on the district’s image in many people’s eyes is the large number of homeless people, many of them suffering from drug problems, who congregate in what is known locally as the ‘bear pit’: a largely tarmac-covered, sunken roundabout at the end of Stokes Croft, connected to the surrounding streets by forbidding, grimy underpasses. The main road also boasts two less-than-subtle brothels.

Chris is adamant that image problems cannot be fixed simply by moving homeless people on or shutting down the massage parlours. You have to ‘work with what you’ve got’, he says. In their effort to discourage rough sleeping and graffiti by providing only single person seats and covering surfaces in anti-graffiti paint, the council has inadvertently made the area unwelcoming for everyone, says Chris. ‘If the policy is to make public space inhospitable to the homeless, then it will become scary to the public.’

While the PRSC has no formal links with any political organisations, it explicitly challenges what it believes has been the council’s approach to urban development. The focus, the group claims, has been exclusively on attracting private investment and big brands, exemplified by the ongoing £500-million Cabot Circus project to rejuvenate Bristol’s retail heart just a few hundred metres away from Stokes Croft. Instead, the PRSC argues, the aim of regeneration should be to create welcoming public spaces and to promote creativity in the face of creeping corporate homogenisation, with public art a cheap way of doing so that can involve the local community.

‘This is the front line of the battle against the encroachment of Cabot Circus,’ Chris warns, ‘so it needs to have a strong identity.’ However, others think that the new shopping hub, currently festooned with cranes, might be beneficial. ‘Cabot Circus has had a good impact,’ says Lisa Blackwood, who works at the nearby Kuumba Arts and Community Centre. ‘Stokes Croft is too close to Cabot Circus not to be developed.’ Yet commercial enterprise is welcomed by the PRSC, so long as it fits with the area’s independent and eclectic feel. ‘If we change the perception of the area, then businesses will come,’ Chris says. Indeed, cafes, grocers, bookshops and t-shirt printers have sprung up, attracted by relatively low rents.

Character appraisal

Bristol council says that it is working with residents and groups such as the PRSC to improve Stokes Croft. In October 2007 it published a detailed ‘character appraisal’ of the area, assessing its aesthetic and social problems, and also acknowledging that the murals that now dot the area are part of its distinctive character.

They have recently undertaken a £1-million renovation of a hostel for homeless people, and a street-drinking ban in 2003 was largely successful in moving on drinkers from a central grassy patch known as ‘Turbo Island’ on the main road (though critics claim that this has done little more than displace them a few hundred metres down the street). But private investment is still central to renewing urban areas, the council argues: ‘The improvements to the image of the area effected by the work of PRSC are one part of the process, but not sustainable on their own – there needs to be commercial investment to back it up.’

One of the council’s biggest problems is getting private owners to preserve the historic character of their buildings and shop fronts. Some property holders simply hang on to derelict buildings, hoping that a lucrative development offer will come along. The council is currently battling to reclaim the towering Westmoreland House building from the developers Comer Homes, who have left it derelict for more than two decades. Seven people have died since the building was damaged by fire and abandoned in 1969.

As our tour of the Republic comes to an end, Chris is keen to stress that he doesn’t think he has all the answers to Stokes Croft’s problems. Most of the works done so far are temporary. ‘The project is constantly evolving. A year ago I was thinking differently, and next year it will have changed again.’

There may be a risk that street art, while visually exciting, will turn the area into an artistic ghetto, and be exclusive of those who are not a part of the graffiti community. Or, if businesses and affluent residents are drawn in, the resulting rent hikes may push out the very artists who are attempting to accelerate urban renewal. The next step planned for the PRSC is to set up as a social business, where donations are exchanged for a say in the future of the project. Whatever direction the PRSC takes next, there can be no doubt that public art created and funded by local artists can be a cost effective way of putting colour and life back into the inner city.

Olympic games won't deliver

Alex Doherty — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:18:34 +0000

The closing of the Olympic Games in Beijing and the record haul of gold medals by “Team GB” became the perfect excuse for an outpouring of British patriotism last week.

Even London mayor Boris Johnson got in on the act, declaring that “virtually every single one of our international sports were either invented or codified by the British” and that London was “the sporting capital of the world”.

The Daily Mail could barely restrain its enthusiasm for the newfound national pride. It reminded its readers that in addition to netting 19 gold medals, Britain is the fourth strongest military power in the world.

“Our armed forces are the best in the world,” it added, which is why the Royal Navy has ordered two enormous aircraft carriers to befit our place in the world.

Even the Guardian could not resist jumping on the “Back Britain” juggernaut. It decreed that the 2012 London Olympics “offer a once-in-a-generation chance to define the capital and the country for a global audience”.

Those caught up in the enthusiasm are making a myriad of claims about the positive effects that the games would have on Britain, on the deprived areas of east London where the 2012 spectacle will be centred – and even upon thousands of young people at risk of obesity.

East London’s five host boroughs are among the most deprived in Britain. One third of all adults in Newham are “economically inactive” and 65 percent of households have an income of less than £30,000 a year.

Rocketing rents and the building of thousands of “yuppie flats” for those working in the business districts of the City and Canary Wharf have accompanied a chronic shortage of rented accommodation.

Sports secretary Tessa Jowell and British Olympic boss Lord Coe promise that the Olympic Games development will bring an extra 9,000 new homes, “many affordable for local people”.

But what does “affordable” mean? Housing association East Homes is currently offering part-rent, part-buy two-bedroom flats in Stratford that are supposed to help people in Newham clamber on to the property ladder.

Mortgage

Their price list states that rent and mortgage payments are expected to be £1061.40 a month – well beyond the reach of most people in the borough.

And no one expects the flats being built to house athletes to be rented out at a level that ordinary people can afford.

But what of the array of sport facilities that will remain after the games? Even here the talk of a “legacy” is seriously misleading.

As 2012 draws to a conclusion, east London will be saddled with an enormous stadium that can handle large scale tournaments, but will be useless for the recreational needs of the local community.

The 2012 mountain biking venue being constructed in South Weald in Essex is estimated to cost £5 million. The event it caters for will last just six hours – and then the facility will be torn down.

The Olympics Aquatics Centre in Stratford will have a seating capacity of 2,500. But its presence will speed the demise of nine local swimming pools in London – including the best pool in the host borough of Waltham Forest, which is short of the £75 million it needs each year to remain open.

Gordon Brown said that he hoped Britain’s success in the Beijing games could combine to help rescue grassroots sport and inspire healthy living.

“The Olympics can inspire people. More people will give up smoking, less people will become obese,” he said. However there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the opposite will be the case.

As the cost of the London Olympics has spiralled to £9.3 billion, funds are being diverted from local sporting projects that involve many thousands of people – few of whom engage with sport in order to win a medal.

The big money is now being driven towards creating “centres of excellence” in selected sports where a few hundred potential success stories will be groomed in the hope of Team GB winning a few more medals.

The National Lottery is channelling £2 billion of its funds into the 2012 Olympics, while London council tax bills are expected to provide another £1 billion. Waiting lists for classes at local centres will grow, and prices will continue to rocket.

The pressure to win doesn’t mean more young people getting involved in sports. It means elite sport for a minority of “winners”, as Brown made clear this week as he announced that schools should bring back “competitive sports”.

Boxing

“We want to encourage competitive sports in schools, not the ‘medals for all’ culture we have seen in previous years,” he said. He went on to say that children could be encouraged to take up boxing in state schools as a way of teaching them self-control.

The notion that some people are “good” at physical games while others are “useless” remains a key part of people’s school experience of sport. It is one reason why so few people in Britain are regular participants in any sporting activity.

Brown is now seeking to compound this view – but perhaps this doesn’t matter if his rhetoric doesn’t meet the reality.

Last week a headline in The Mirror declared that young people should be inspired by Olympic success to “drop their knives and take up cycling”. You can’t help but think that fantasy politics has overtaken fantasy football as a national pastime.
The real Olympic winners

For most people, the Olympics will never be a basis for active participation in sport. They will be a TV spectacle and little else.

And the big winners will not be the people of east London, but the multinational corporations who sponsor the event and the International Olympic Committee with its sale of billion dollar TV rights.

There will, of course, be one other beneficiary – the security industry. The home secretary’s Olympic Security Committee is pitching for a budget of £225 million.

This is what it says will be required to make London the surveillance capital of the world during the 2012 games. I wonder how many swimming pools you could buy for that?

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Hitting the Target, Missing the Point

Ellie Keen — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:18:57 +0000

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, inequality has reached levels not seen in the UK for over 40 years¹. Despite decades of economic regeneration programmes in low-income communities, our place of birth continues to be a major predictor of the jobs we do, our health and life expectancy, and the income we earn².

Why this research?

This report from nef (the new economics foundation) asks why inequality is increasing when investment in deprived areas is growing. It is not only an important question to ask but also a timely one as the Government is pumping significant funding into regeneration initiatives in the build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

Focusing on the experience of St Helens metropolitan borough on Merseyside, our research suggests that the methods used by policy makers to measure the success of Local Economic Growth Initiatives (LEGIs) , although an improvement on what went before, are still inadequate. A more sophisticated approach is needed for the shortcomings of successive regeneration programmes to be understood and overcome.

Prior to LEGI, the evaluations attached to regeneration programmes tended to focus mainly on quantitative economic outputs, such as the numbers of jobs and enterprises created and people trained³. But projects can be successful on these terms without changing underlying inequalities. This report argues that the approach taken to evaluations has relied too heavily on two flawed assumptions – that outputs provide a true measurement of change, and that there is necessarily a direct cause-and-effect relationship between investment and the achievement of policy objectives.

Insufficiently robust evaluations have led to a perpetuation of similar types of initiatives. The outcomes required to address inequality have rarely been achieved, and governments have potentially exaggerated the improvements secured by their investments.

Although LEGI is more outcomes-focussed, the research raised further questions about the extent to which improvements were likely to be attributable to the investment from this programme. Given the scale of the task that a programme like LEGI has undertaken, a more sophisticated approach is needed for the shortcomings of successive regeneration programmes to be understood and overcome.

The research upon which this report is based was conducted under nef’s Measuring What Matters programme. Measuring What Matters was established to investigate how government policy making might be improved by measuring and valuing what matters most to people, communities, the environment and local economies. nef has a track record in working with communities to develop radical solutions to the problems created by the shortcomings of the macro-economic system. For example, its Clone Town work looked at the impact on communities of a reduction in the diversity of shops and services; and its Plugging the Leaks initiative shows how money spent locally can continue to benefit people through a local multiplier effect⁴.

It was through projects such as these that the need for a new approach to measuring change became apparent. The objectives of nef’s research in St Helen’s have been to evaluate current methods of measurement, to suggest alternatives, and to try to achieve a more rounded measurement of social return on investment (SROI) that will be applicable not only to local enterprise investment but also to other areas of public policy.

The approach

Measuring What Matters advocates a long-term, transparent approach to measurement in which a central role is played by local communities – the people on the receiving end of the investment. Policy decisions are often driven by considerations of where governments can make financial savings. In contrast SROI advocates a triple bottom line approach in which environmental and social impacts are evaluated alongside economic benefits. In SROI analysis an attempt is made to measure and value the things that really matter to people as well as those things that are easy to count, or that are traded in the market place.

SROI analysis culminates in a ratio, or ‘social value’, generated for investment. More importantly, however, SROI tells the story of how value is created. It is designed to inspire those delivering and using services to engage with the change to which their work contributes.

The policy

Until recently the Local Enterprise Growth initiative (LEGI) was the government’s flagship economic development programme. It aimed to transform deprived communities by raising levels of enterprise and employment, and by fostering entrepreneurial and work-oriented aspirations. It was different from its predecessors in that its programmes were designed to operate over a longer period (10 years) and were more focused on outcomes. For each programme central government specified the outcomes it wanted to see and it was up to local authorities to determine how those outcomes would be achieved.
While this research was taking place a restructure at the Department for Communities and Local Government saw the creation of a new regeneration programme – the Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF) – which means that no additional rounds of LEGI will be announced. It is intended, however, that the WNF will have a strong enterprise focus. Lessons from this research may offer much to inform the design and monitoring of the new fund.

The scope

St Helens is the 47th most deprived borough in the UK⁵. This is only the first year of a long-term study in the borough. After one year we can measure changes in enterprise and employment in St Helens but it is not possible to take a view on whether these changes are the result of activities funded by the LEGI. Instead, we have made some projections for the ‘social return’ we could expect to see at the end of three years. At this stage, therefore the findings focus on what we have learned from the process as well as qualitative findings from conversations with a range of stakeholders.

The findings

Our research has found that if St Helens LEGI were to meet its goals in the first three years, this would represent a social return of 14:1, or £14 worth of social value for every £1 invested. This is based on achievement of all the expected outcomes and projecting these over eight years⁶. Where the indicator of the outcome does not already have a market value, financial proxies have been used. In future years the intention is to compare the actual return against this projection.

As well as the headline outcomes of increasing local enterprise, employment and self-employment, our research modelled a range of other benefits that local people believed would flow from getting more people into work – such as improvements in health, crime and quality of life. However, only those things for which there were sufficient data on which to base calculations were included in the social return projections. According to these calculations, the main recipients of the value generated by the LEGI will be people who are economically inactive.

The SROI projections are at present based on absolute rather than relative numbers, for example the value of jobs to people, rather than the value of reducing inequality, irrespective of how many jobs are created⁷. The next update will be based on a more sophisticated approach that measures and monetises the value of the improved social outcomes that a more equal society brings about, and uses that to derive the calculations.

We also looked at the issue of valuing equity in relation to those experiencing more acute exclusion, such as women and people on incapacity benefit (IB). When we weighted the benefits to these groups more heavily we found that the social return ratio for these groups was similar, at 15:1, to the overall 14:1 ratio. In the next phase of the research it should be easier to assess whether the emphasis on these groups is sufficient in the overall mix of projects

The recommendations

This research highlights the need for new approaches to regeneration policy and how it is measured. Our recommendations are as follows:

Measurement

Don’t assume that public investment alone has created change. SROI offers a useful framework within which to examine the information required, in order to assess change arising from an investment. Deadweight and attribution are central considerations for an SROI analysis, ensuring that influential factors additional to the investment itself are taken on board.

Targets can create perverse incentives and do not necessarily reflect the reality of people’s lives. LEGI targets – across the programme – focus on full employment, yet experience in St Helens suggests that this is often unrealistic for people who have been excluded for a long time from the labour market.

Measure and value distance travelled. Stepping stones into employment need to be created, and the length of the journey into employment needs to be recognised. The pre-employment phase – intensive coaching and work on attitudinal change with the unemployed, as well as awareness-raising among employers – is especially important. For example, it may take up to a year to build someone’s confidence to the point where serious employment discussions can begin.

Have a vision for how change will happen. A theory of change is needed to set out the logical flow from the investment programme through to how change will be created. This is an essential building block for planning any initiative of this kind. Theories of change should be explicit and the process through which they are developed should be transparent.

Measure the things that matter. If not addressed, gaps in the data will hinder the ability to carry out future evaluations. Timely and appropriate data are missing at a local and national level for a number of indicators. Data tend to be skewed towards bigger business and larger areas, although the problems of deprivation are often concentrated in smaller localities and the many smaller enterprises that will never grow to be eligible for VAT registration.

Involve stakeholders in setting and measuring indicators. One of the biggest challenges in moving towards outcomes-focused measurement is engaging staff that have been trained in a target-driven culture. It is important to involve them fully in developing systems in which they take more responsibility for understanding and managing the change that their service is bringing about.

Take a long-term view. Some outcomes from a programme such as the LEGI are not likely to accrue for a generation. Timescales within which measurement takes place need to reflect the actual pace of change, rather than policy or political cycles.

Economic development policy should be underpinned by an awareness of its impact on inequality. New research from nef has found that growth in share of enterprise within a local authority does not necessarily lead to a similar increase in the most deprived neighbourhoods (report forthcoming). Apart from employment there are other impacts of a decline in enterprise that need to be considered, such as a decline in local shops and services that reduce people’s access to these amenities.

Take risks. Innovation in economic development should not be limited to projects themselves but should also apply to the theory of change developed to help implement them. An acceptance of risk is essential to achieve innovation. Consultation with local people in St Helens highlighted the importance of the following factors in the development of a theory of change for economic development:

Formal and informal networks and their role in getting people into the labour market (see the Bizz Fizz approach to building on networks in deprived communities)⁸.
The informal economy and its importance to those who are on low incomes and/or intending to move into self-employment.

Any job is not enough. While paid employment was very important to those seeking work, meaningful work was also considered important. Negative experiences of casual and insecure employment can be discouraging for those with already low levels of confidence. Future plans for the WNF should also take account of the quality of jobs created in terms of sustainability, conditions, satisfaction and so on. These factors matter to stakeholders.

Develop a joined-up approach. WNF needs to dovetail policy in this area with initiatives by other departments. For example, the recent Green Paper on employment made no mention of enterprise, despite its importance to the Department of Communities and Local Government and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Neither did the Green Paper refer to sustainable development, a significant policy concern both for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and in the 2006 Local Government White Paper.

Take the politics out of regeneration. There is still a significant gap in the evidence about what works in relation to economic development policy. It is essential that policy becomes more informed and less political if we are to build the evidence base and use public investment as effectively as possible to combat inequality.

Conclusions
This research has set out to explore the use of SROI as a way of evaluating an economic development programme. Our report makes the case for using a SROI approach to help build an evidence base and to enable the more effective targeting of public policy and investment. Assuming the right data systems are in place, the next steps will be to compare the SROI projections with actual outcomes in the second year. There are strong grounds for optimism that the SROI process and its results will provide better measures of effectiveness both for the LEGI and for future WNF programmes on local economic development.

The moral and economic arguments for reducing inequality and raising the incomes of the poor have been made by others. The UK economy has maintained average growth rates of 2.5 per cent since the 1950s but the benefits of this growth have not been equally distributed, which has led to more concentrated and entrenched poverty and social exclusion. It is essential that policy and investment should be effectively focused on those areas where it will have the most impact.

Finally, future economic development programmes need to be underpinned by a coherent and innovative theory of change. Evaluations need to be focused on the achievement of sustainable development outcomes, which directly relate to addressing the causes of inequality.

The whole report is available here.

Notes:

1. See Dorling D et al (2007) Poverty, Wealth and Place in Britain, 1968 to 2005 (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation); cf. Orton M and Rowlingson K (2007) Public Attitudes to Economic Inequality (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation).
2. Dorling D and Thomas B (2007) Identity in Britain: A Cradle-To-Grave Atlas (Policy Press, Bristol).
3. See for example, evaluations from Enterprise Zones, Regional Selective Assistance and Phoenix Development Fund: Kornblatt T and Troni L (2006) City Markets: business location in deprived areas (London: ippr); ODPM (2003) Business-led Regeneration of Deprived Areas: A Review of the Evidence Base, Research Report 5 (London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister); and Ramsden P (2005) Phoenix Fund: final evaluation for SBS, availabke from www.sbs.gov.uk [26 February 2008].
4. See Simms A et al (2005) Clone Town Britain: The survey results on the bland state of the nation (London: nef) and www.pluggingtheleaks.org [26 February 2008].
5. http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/neighbourhoodrenewal/deprivation/deprivation07/
6. Five years is a standard period over which to project the returns, and so for a three-year programme the projection is over eight years.
7. This was close to the one-year LIBOR rate as of January 2007 when the calculations were made. It would also be possible to take a longer-term average but it is unlikely that this would have an impact on the overall SROI ratio.
8. Issues of equity are only considered in so far as a closing of the St Helens enterprise gap makes the achievement of the employment outcomes more likely.