COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)
Town Centre Regeneration
30 April 2009
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr David Simpson (Chairperson)
Mr David Hilditch (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr Billy Armstrong
Mr Mickey Brady
Mr Thomas Burns
Mr Jonathan Craig
Ms Anna Lo
Mr Fra McCann
Miss Michelle McIlveen
Witnesses:
Mr Robert Kidd ) Department for Social Development
Mr Ian Snowden )
The Chairperson (Mr Simpson):
The Committee will now receive a departmental briefing on its inquiry into town-centre regeneration. This was intended to be the final departmental evidence session on this matter, but the Department wrote to the Committee in February 2008 indicating that it was reviewing its policies and practices on that issue in the context of the recommendations in the EDAW report.
One month ago, the Committee Clerk requested an update from the Department on its stocktake of its policies. The Committee agreed that the outworking of the stocktake would be crucial in its consideration of its recommendations for town-centre regeneration. The Committee could simply choose to endorse the Department’s findings from the stocktake. However, that is possible only if the Committee knows what those findings are. The Department, as of this morning, has failed to submit a paper for this briefing. As a result, it may be that the Department has missed a golden opportunity to secure the Committee’s support for its policies.
Include in members’ packs are copies of the Clerk’s cover note, copies of the departmental letter dated 10 December 2007, which advised the Committee of the stocktake, and a copy of the letter dated 4 February 2008, which provided an update on the EDAW recommendations that were to be reviewed in the stocktake.
The officials in attendance are Ian Snowdon, who is the acting director of the regional-development office in the Department for Social Development (DSD), and Robert Kidd, who is from the same office. You are very welcome, gentlemen. As a gambit, before you provide the briefing, why have we not received that document?
Mr Ian Snowden (Department for Social Development):
I must apologise; I found that out only this morning. We put the paper to the Minister, because she must have sight of all papers before they are passed to the Committee. We assumed that that paper would have been passed on in due course as normal. I can only assume that the Minister’s dairy has been hectic this week and that she may not have had an opportunity to see all the papers.
The Chairperson:
Do you accept that it is important for the Committee to see that document in order for it to agree with the policies that are outlined in it? We have not seen any document with which to handle the briefing that you are now going to provide. We have no information on the background of it, which is unacceptable. I will be straight about it: in my opinion, that is dysfunctional.
If the Minister was supposed to sign off on a document, it should have been done before you and your colleague came to face the Committee. We have not received anything. That is a bad way to start a briefing. I am sorry, but that is the way it is. However, if you would like to begin the briefing, members will no doubt have questions. Make sure that you have your bulletproof vests on.
Mr Snowden:
Thank you. I will make a quick statement about what the Department has been doing since we last provided the Committee with a briefing in November 2007. To clarify, Mr Kidd is in fact the head of the urban-regeneration policy unit. He previously worked in the regional-development office, but moved to his new post approximately one year ago.
As you are aware, on 15 November 2007, at the outset of your inquiry, officials from the Department made a presentation to the Committee. I was one of the officials who attended that meeting. As you said, we provided further written submissions on 10 December 2007, and on 4 February 2008. I welcome the opportunity to further update you on what we have been doing in the interim period and to answer any questions that the Committee may have. If you are agreeable, I will give a quick summary of the progress that has been made on urban-regeneration activities in town centres since our last meeting.
The Department is progressing a programme of work to produce town-centre master plans and strategies for all the main towns in Northern Ireland. Up to this point, we have completed master plans for Ballymena, Omagh and Portrush. This afternoon, the Minister is launching a development plan for Ballycastle. Master plans are underway for another eight towns, and we anticipate that those will all be completed before the end of the year. The towns involved are: Antrim; Armagh; Carrickfergus; Downpatrick; Dungannon; Larne; Lisburn; and Strabane. As you will be aware, we are also producing an integrated-development framework for the Craigavon urban area. Furthermore, we intend to start work on final master plans for Bangor, Coleraine, Enniskillen, Limavady, Newry, Newtownabbey and Newtownards during 2009. That will cover all the main towns in Northern Ireland.
In recent years, the Department has built up a significant programme of public realm improvements for towns across Northern Ireland. In this financial year, the budget for that is £8·4 million. Members may be aware of some of the individual schemes that we have delivered in the past 12 to 18 months. For example, we have completed major schemes in Newcastle, Newry and Coleraine. Important projects are to be completed within the next two to three months in Armagh, Warrenpoint and Ballyclare. Within the next 12 months, we are aiming to start work on schemes in Carrickfergus, Cookstown, Lurgan, Portadown, Dungannon, Kilkeel and Downpatrick. Another form of public realm work is taking place in Strabane, where we are working closely with the council on a footbridge over the River Mourne, which will aid connections in the town centre.
The third major area of work is in comprehensive development schemes. Despite the economic downturn, we are continuing to work on major schemes in a number of towns. We are quite close to signing development agreements for two sites in Coleraine and one site in Holywood. We are also making good progress on the derelict Queen’s Parade site in Bangor, where we hope to be in a position to appoint the preferred developer within the next two months. During 2008, the Department acquired a site at Curran Street in Portadown, which has lain derelict for approximately 25 years. We are drawing up plans for a mixed-use scheme on that site, which will include housing, retail premises, office units and a community facility. Also during 2008, we acquired the site of the former North Street flats in Newry. We have just completed a contamination study on that site, and a development brief will be prepared and issued when, we hope, the market conditions are favourable for its development.
We have been following the Committee’s inquiry with some interest and have noted the comments and views that have been expressed by those who have given evidence. Many of those views and comments will resonate with the conclusions and recommendations of the internal stocktake of the Department’s regeneration policies, which was undertaken at official level last year. That is the stocktake to which you referred in your opening remarks.
I will clarify the purpose of that stocktake. An initial scoping exercise was undertaken to provide us with information to lead to a much more in-depth review of policies. That is work that we are now starting. The stocktake document is still in draft form, and it is fair to say that it is still relatively rough. A submission that we prepared for the Committee summarised the recommendations and conclusions of the stocktake paper. However, presentationally, we do not feel that that is in a format that we would be comfortable providing the Committee with. Unfortunately, that is all by the by, because the paper never made it to the Committee, and I apologise again for that.
The aim of the stocktake was to provide us with scoping information for a more in-depth review. The aim of that review is to help us to develop an urban-regeneration policy framework, which will determine how the Department operates in the future. We aim to have that framework in place in time for the transfer of urban-regeneration delivery functions to the new local authorities in May 2011 under the review of public administration (RPA).
In summary, the stocktake exercise reached three main conclusions. The first was that urban-regeneration policymaking is not always evidence based. The second was that there is no strong monitoring and evaluation structure for policy development on urban regeneration. The third was that the Department does not have a strategic framework in place to determine the direction of groups’ programmes and policies on town-centre regeneration.
It was recommended that an urban-regeneration policy framework should be established; that a more thoroughly researched and evidence-based approach to policies should be adopted in the establishment of that framework; and that all urban-regeneration and community-development policies and programmes should undergo an evaluation as part of the process. The correspondence that the Committee received from the Department highlighted a number of issues to be considered as part of the stocktake. The stocktake found that those issues needed to be considered in a holistic context rather than reviewed individually at the time. We need to give serious consideration to where those issues will fit into policy framework.
The review of public administration makes all that extremely important for the Department. The RPA’s impact on urban regeneration can be summarised by saying that, from May 2011, responsibility for the delivery of all urban-regeneration activities will transfer to new local authorities. That will include all the work on town-centre and city-centre regeneration as well as neighbourhood renewal and other programmes that are aimed at tackling disadvantage and furthering community development.
The Department will retain responsibility for urban-regeneration policy after the RPA. It is also proposed that the Department could have powers to call in regeneration schemes that the Minister considers as regionally significant, or that a local authority is not capable of delivering on its own. However, we do not envisage that that power will be used frequently, if at all. The Department will move from being focused on both delivery and policy — and it is fair to say that the majority of our resources are currently dedicated towards delivery — to a new role in which it is almost entirely focused on policy and has only a small delivery remit.
The establishment of a strong policy framework that is suitable for the post-RPA environment is a high priority. The RPA makes taking forward the stocktake’s recommendations even more important. To address that issue, we identified three work streams: creating strong, cohesive communities; tackling spatial deprivation, which is essentially the neighbourhood renewal strategy; and town-centre and city-centre regeneration. The Committee is obviously most interested in the last of those in the context of this inquiry.
Under that third work stream, we are critically reviewing all the Department’s policies and programmes to try to definitively establish whether they contain any weaknesses, gaps or inconsistencies; whether there are any contradictions or tensions between existing policies and programmes; whether there are any potentially defunct policies or programmes that we no longer require; whether there is any scope for merging, or linking, policies and programmes to make them more coherent and easily understood for citizens and private developers; and whether there are any new delivery mechanisms that could be considered in the context of the RPA. The review of the Department’s policies and programmes will have to address all those questions in the context of the post-RPA environment, as the Department will not be directly responsible for delivery.
We will have to consider two key questions at every step of the process. The first is about whether our policies and programmes are adequate for the post-RPA environment. The second is about what changes will be required to ensure successful delivery under the new structures after the RPA. Our target for the completion of that work is October 2009. By that time, we hope to be in a position to put options and recommendations to the Minister for her consideration. Any changes to urban-regeneration policy and programmes will have to be considered, and decided on, in the light of that in-depth review. The Department will, of course, consult the Committee at all appropriate stages of the development process.
I hope that that presentation was clear. We are happy to take any questions that you may have about the Department’s activities.
The Chairperson:
Thank you for your presentation. The Committee has conducted a great deal of research into the Department’s town-centre regeneration policy, and we have received a great deal of feedback about the lack of continuity and linkages. Is the Department surprised by those reports about the failure of the policy? Has your evaluation confirmed that a review is required?
Mr Snowden:
The absence of connections and the occurrence of hiccups do not come as a surprise to the Department. With devolution, when the functions of the Department of the Environment were split between it, the Department for Regional Development (DRD) and the Department for Social Development, the work of town-centre regeneration became disjointed to some extent. That has made it more difficult to work through some of the issues that we want to tackle.
We have known for some time that although we have certain legislative powers, for example, to work on comprehensive development schemes, the legislation gives us no clear direction as to how those powers should be applied or where the priorities should sit. As a consequence, every time we begin a major scheme, we have to build up from first principles the case for use of the powers in that particular location. Victoria Square is a good case in point.
In 2001, on the back of the EDAW recommendations, we attempted to bring forward a town-centre regeneration policy. Unfortunately, every time that we have tried to address the difficulties that I outlined, some issue has arisen that has made the whole context more difficult. At our last attempt, in 2005, the review of public administration made the context more difficult. We had formulated a policy that was predicated on the Department maintaining its current policy and delivery functions, but that was not really fit for an environment in which we would be responsible for policy and someone else would be responsible for delivery. It has been a difficult process to get that brought forward.
The second issue that you asked about was the evaluation of our stocktake and our assessment scoping exercise. It identifies the need to have an evaluation of the effectiveness of certain aspects of our policy and how they work in practice. A precursor to that would be the establishment of some key performance indicators, or indicators of how effective the policy is. That would be the starting point to the process. It is hoped that having that framework in place would allow us to assess the effectiveness of the current policies and the effectiveness of any policies that we introduce thereafter.
The Chairperson:
What is the Department’s timescale for getting its policies right?
Mr Snowden:
We have to have that done by the deadline that has been set by the RPA. We will be in a difficult position if we do not have an effective framework in place and councils are responsible for delivery thereafter.
The Chairperson:
That gives a reasonable timescale of two years.
Mr Snowden:
Yes. However, if legislation is required for that process, we will be bound by the legislative timetable too. At this point, we do not think that legislation will be required, but we cannot rule out that possibility. Also, we have to go through whatever processes are necessary for an equality impact assessment, consultation, and so on. Therefore, a deadline of two years will require us to work intensively if we are to have that in place and set up properly before the review of public administration takes effect.
The Chairperson:
How will the Department improve its co-ordination with other stakeholders?
Mr Snowden:
Do you mean other stakeholders in Government or other stakeholders per se?
The Chairperson:
I mean other stakeholders per se.
Mr Snowden:
That is where the review of public administration could be useful. Not only is the urban regeneration function transferring to local authorities, but planning functions are also transferring. The ability to link together planning control, planning development and urban regeneration will be a positive development.
We work through a process of producing master plans, but because of the legislative framework in Northern Ireland, they have no statutory basis and they cannot be taken into account as a material factor by the Planning Service in determining any planning applications. If planning and urban regeneration functions are brought together into a single organisation in the context of planning reform, those master plans will have some statutory basis and will be more effective in controlling and directing how development operates in town centres. That is one example of how co-ordination will be improved as the framework progresses.
We will continue to have to work with any Government Departments that are responsible for factors that impinge on town-centre regeneration. The process is something that we will have to examine, but the Department has other policies in place. For example, we have tried to establish ministerial groups to improve co-ordination in the neighbourhood renewal strategy, and we have forums —
The Chairperson:
You said that the Department has tried to established ministerial groupings. Has that been successful?
Mr Snowden:
A ministerial group for neighbourhood renewal exists and it will meet again on 13 May 2009. The question is about how many of those groups should be established across Government. There are quite a number of them. It is important to ensure that that mechanism is used in appropriate cases, and that we are not overloading and overlapping on a range of responsibilities with different groups.
Mr Craig:
One issue that has always puzzled me is about how the Department prioritises any town-centre regeneration and the projects to be undertaken. Is the most important consideration the physical regeneration or does it include proper businesses and economic development? As you know, I have huge concerns about that matter. You had to answer a number of questions, and the situation does not look very good at all with regard to Lisburn — £500,000 has been spent there over the past 10 years, which is not a good figure.
Mr Snowden:
The prioritisation of resources for physical regeneration projects such as public realm schemes and environmental improvement schemes has, essentially, been driven by requests from district councils. Outside Belfast and the centre of Derry, projects are delivered by local authorities. Therefore, we consider a request when it is made by a local authority. In the case of Lisburn and a number of other towns, we have simply not had the requests. We are working on that in Lisburn, and we are considering a couple of active requests.
The Department wants to have a network of master plans for the main towns across Northern Ireland to help to guide us on what regeneration activity should be to enable a town centre to move forward. The aim is that the decisions on what sites to develop in a town centre, and what form of development should go into those sites, should be covered by the master plans. That is one aspect of prioritisation in a town centre.
As regard to which town gets attention first, it would be fair to admit that, up to this point, we have been following what is largely an opportunity-led process whereby when there is an opportunity to take a scheme forward, and something is deliverable, we will attempt to pursue it. Within that, of course, the Department has to be cognisant of the fact that certain towns need more assistance than others. Therefore, although there has been an opportunity to take forward schemes in places such as Ballymena for example, those have not really proceeded as quickly as in some other towns because Ballymena might not be considered to be the town most in need even in that part of Northern Ireland, rather than in Northern Ireland as a whole. We try to take account of where the needs are, but at the same time we have to be driven by the opportunity.
The Chairperson:
I liked the way that Mr Craig dropped in Lisburn to try to ensnare him; it nearly worked.
Mr F McCann:
It is my understanding that the next meeting of the ministerial group for neighbourhood renewal will be only its third in just over two years. That shows the emphasis that has been placed on neighbourhood renewal and other aspects of development.
When a master plan is completed, how is it taken to the next stage of becoming a full-blown development plan? Many master plans that I have seen, whether local master plans or for town centres, do not form the basis of an actual plan. They are often drawn up in a mishmash manner rather than as a structured plan.
Mr Snowden:
In doing this sort of work, one quickly comes to realise that it is quite easy to draw pretty pictures on a page of what one would like to achieve in a town centre. The real skill is in producing a plan that is deliverable and achievable.
The Department is aiming to have a framework or timescale for all the master plans on which it is working at present that shows when certain projects will be delivered. An example of that is the Ballymena master plan, which was announced by the Minister last week. That master plan lists 46 separate initiatives. It contains a chart that shows how those initiatives are linked together, because certain measures have to be taken before others can move forward. Each of those initiatives outlines the steps that have to be taken by the Department and by others to ensure that those activities can progress.
Under the RPA, local authorities will take responsibility for the delivery of programmes. In every one of those cases, we are trying to ensure that the master plan is delivered jointly and in partnership with the relevant local authority, so that there is continuity after the implementation of the RPA and that nothing will not fall by the wayside after two years because of a gap between delivery by the Department and the local authority.
In trying to ensure that those master plans are delivered, we have to have proper plans in place — even if only at an outline level — as part of the master plan to show who is responsible for doing what and how it will be taken forward. On the other hand, we must consider the resources that will be attached. Quite often, money will be required to deliver some of those programmes. The Department currently has no budgetary cover for anything beyond March 2011, because that date marks the end of the comprehensive spending review (CSR) period. Until the next CSR period is completed, we will not know what our budgets are for any programmes. Therefore, it is very difficult for us to commit resources to anything beyond the current two-year period. We must ensure that work is taken forward on individual projects so that they are brought up to a standard at which the budget can be bid for and secured for those projects.
Mr F McCann:
Every time that a council or a Committee discusses those issues, someone says that the RPA will deal with the matter. Is there a danger that much of what is going on or what may be done about town-centre regeneration will be left to the RPA?
Mr Snowden:
That is a danger that we have identified. The RPA will consume a lot of the time and energy of the Department and local authorities. There is a distinct risk that we would not initiate certain activities or take measures because of the effect that the RPA will have on how things are done. After the RPA takes effect, the local authorities will take time to bed in and there is a risk that four or five years will pass in which nothing gets done. We are deliberately working on a strategy to ensure that that does not happen. We are working with local authorities so that there is continuity, projects are given momentum that will allow them to be delivered thereafter and that individual projects do not fall through gaps and go into abeyance as a result.
Mr F McCann:
Consideration for the public realm is one of the main thrusts of town-centre regeneration. A lot of money is spent on regeneration; indeed, recent articles in the press have suggested that millions of pounds have been spent. There are streets in the centre of Belfast that have been relaid with expensive brickwork and which have been dug up again by utilities without restoring the work to its original state. How can those utilities be controlled? It seems that they have a licence to do anything. Within days and weeks of the paths in Cornmarket being laid, all the good work that had been done was destroyed by the utilities.
The Chairperson:
On top of that, it is a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Mr F McCann:
I would have thought that the utilities should be contacted before any such projects are carried out so that their work can be tied into the development.
The Chairperson:
Do you wish to comment on that? Robert, you are to blame . [Laughter.]
Mr Robert Kidd (Department for Social Development):
I am aware that the Minister has written to her colleagues in DRD and DOE about the issue. Before any paving is laid, for example, there is a statutory process in which all the utilities are asked to declare whether they have any works planned in the next 24 months, which is the standard bedding-in period in which the utilities are not allowed to touch areas in the public realm. In the case of the Cornmarket example, all the utilities wrote back to say that they had no initial plans to do any work there within the 24-month period. Unfortunately there was an oversight by one of the utility companies, and they went back within a matter of weeks. That company will be expected to pick up the tab itself.
The Chairperson:
It may be able to pick up the tab, but you can rest assured that it will be passed on to somebody. There are no free meals.
Mr Kidd:
Ultimately, somebody will pay for it.
Mr Hilditch:
Will you outline the effectiveness or otherwise of the Department’s use of powers under the planning order to vest properties to promote town-centre regeneration?
Mr Snowden:
In general terms I cannot outline that at this point in time. Individual evaluations of individual projects and schemes where those powers have been used have been undertaken, but no comprehensive evaluation of that particular use has been undertaken.
The Chairperson:
Was that issue not supposed to be considered under the stocktake?
Mr Snowden:
The stocktake did not actually consider that issue in any depth. It did identify that there was no basis on which an analysis could be made of the exact impact of the use of that power, except by considering the individual schemes. More work and in-depth analysis will be done on that as part of the plan to be taken forward. If one were to consider individual schemes, for example, in the maritime area in Carrickfergus, or the scheme at Duncairn Gardens in Belfast, or even Victoria Square, when the time comes for that evaluation to be undertaken, one could identify the benefits of the process in each of those individual locations, but it is more difficult to consider the effect of the policy for the whole of Northern Ireland.
Mr Hilditch:
Has the Town Centre Living Initiative — which used to be called the Living over the Shop scheme — been positive in encouraging the development of accommodation in town centres?
Mr Snowden:
Generally speaking, in those locations where it has been tried, it has been successful. The two pilot projects that operated in Lisburn and Londonderry proved to be very positive. The effect on Bridge Street in Lisburn in particular has been positive, as I know from direct experience of working alongside that scheme.
The Chairperson:
Was there not an issue with that scheme about allowing people to park, which involved DRD. That scheme fell flat because of that issue.
Mr Snowden:
No. There was a question about whether dedicated off-street parking spaces would need to be provided for properties in certain places. It depends on the nature of the road or street on to which the property fronts as to whether the individual who resides there would be able to park on the street, because some of them might be urban clearways, for example, or controlled zones. For some properties, it depends what space is available, but that is a process that is undertaken by the Planning Service. I do not think that as general issue it prevents the development of any scheme, but it would have to be considered on a case-by-case basis as part of the application for planning permission for the development.
Mr Hilditch:
That leads us to the issue of pedestrianisation. I do not know whether you agree with recommendation 13 of the EDAW report, which states that it would be initiated only as part of a comprehensive town-centre regeneration scheme. Pedestrianisation has obviously proven difficult, not only for people who live in the town centre, but also for visitors. Another Department has introduced pay-and-display parking meters in all car parks. That has put people off going into town centres, and they are going to out-of-town areas as an alternative. Does the Department concur with recommendation 13?
Mr Snowden:
The use of pedestrianisation must be considered on a town-by-town basis. The responsibility for making pedestrianisation orders rests with DRD. It would be done only after extensive consultation in the local area. It is not something that DSD would advocate on a blanket basis, because it would not be right for every town. There are one or two examples where it has not worked effectively.
It must be understood that pedestrianisation does not completely exclude vehicular traffic from a town centre; it gives priority to pedestrians. In almost any pedestrianised zone in any town where that is in place in Northern Ireland, there are still lots of cars. In Coleraine, which probably has one of the largest pedestrianised zones in Northern Ireland, the town centre is quite busy with traffic.
Mr Hilditch:
You would not get away with that in Carrickfergus with the “red coats.” [Laughter.]
Mr Snowden:
No, you might get chased. You may not be able to park there, but there would still be a lot of traffic going through, because people need to get access to properties.
The Chairperson:
Thank you for your presentation. There are quite a number of other questions that members have that we did not have time to go through today. The Committee Clerk will put those questions to the Department in writing, and the Committee would appreciate answers and not being fobbed off, which is what has happened recently with some of our questions. The Committee has received some lovely letters from the Department, but it has not actually received any facts or details.
Is it possible for the Committee to receive a copy of the stocktake document?
Mr Snowden:
Whatever goes to the Committee must first be approved by the Minister. The Minister has not seen the stocktake document herself, as it is still in quite a rough draft.
The Chairperson:
How soon do you think that the Minister would be able to take time out of her busy schedule to look at the document?
Mr Snowden:
I am not sure, but we will put it to her after this meeting.
The Chairperson:
You will mention it to her?
Mr Snowden:
Yes.
The Chairperson:
You can also mention to her that you came to the Committee today without sending a written submission. That did not make things look very good.
However, thank you very much; the Committee appreciates you taking the time to attend. We may require the Department to visit the Committee again once we receive a copy of the stocktake document to discuss any other issues that we may wish to raise before we finish with this issue.
The issue is of great interest to the Committee, and it has taken some time for it to be brought to a conclusion. The Committee has been very busy with other aspects of briefings and forward work programmes, but we do want it brought to a conclusion, we want to bring it to the Floor of the House and we need the Department to get the information to us as quickly as possible.