Major promises better housing with œ4bn fund

Prime Minister John Major has restated the Government's determination to revitalise inner city areas and heralded a new push for urban regeneration. But his words cut little ice in the industry which says it has heard the promises before.

Major told a conference: 'What we are concerned with is producing better quality of housing and to improve the environment.'

And the DoE, which now co-ordinates funds from five government departments, plans to invest œ4 billion in urban regeneration over the next three years, a quarter of this going on housing.

But the Government's record was attacked by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities chairman Sir Jeremy Beecham, who said: 'Conditions in inner city areas have deteriorated sharply during the last 16 years of Conservative Government. House building and maintenance schemes have been delayed.'

His complaints were backed by the National Federation of Housing Associations which said Government cut-backs were proving harmful and called for the œ600 million cut in the Housing Corporation's budget over the last two years to be reversed.

Major claimed that the Urban Development Corporations have reclaimed 2,500ha of derelict land and stimulated œ10 billion of private investment, and City Challenge and the Single Regeneration Budget was continuing that work.

But Keith Carey, director of Laing Homes Special Projects, said: 'The jury is out on Major's speech. The words are great but the inner cities were going downhill. SRB is proving to be a good way forward.' Carey warned, however, that its sustainability was yet to be established.

And Phil Quine, business development director, Lovell Partnerships, said Major's speech contained no new ideas. State Action, which used to put œ750 million a year into improving problem estates, was one of the biggest pots to go into the Government's umbrella SRB organisation, yet the first bidding round of SRB contained hardly any housing element.

'You could argue that housing has in fact lost œ750 million a year of its funding,' said Quine.

But Gerald Cary-Elwes, general secretary of the British Urban Regeneration Association, said things have improved.

'You have to go back 15 years to see the beginning of any concerted action and since 1987 these efforts have been sustained quite considerably. The main criticism was that the programmes provided a patchwork of different initiatives, but this has been addressed by the creation of English Partnerships, City Challenge and the SRB.

'We welcome what John Major said because it highlighted the need for a concerted, integrated effort.'