The National Picture
Just like Oldham and Rochdale, eleven other areas across the North and the Midlands are working to transform their neighbourhoods. They have different challenges and plans based on their local circumstances, but they share the same desire and commitment to:
- Meet the needs of local people
- Attract new residents
- Support economic growth
- Combat disadvantage and exclusion
- Secure community cohesion
- Create opportunity.
Nine of the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) areas are four years into a programme that is expected to last between 10 and 15 years. Three newer HMR areas received their first funding allocations in 2006. We have already made a strong start but securing major change in difficult urban environments takes time and there is still a long way to go.
We are now working together to make the case for continued Government funding at current levels at least, as well as greater certainty of funding to achieve the local plans that residents have contributed to and support. Our joint submission to the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 and the HMR supplement in the Guardian are a couple of the ways that we are doing this.
Transition to Transformation: HMR and our changing communities
Promised Lands, The Guardian, 14 March 2007
Photo: residents from the HMR Pathfinder areas met Jack Straw MP at the House of Commons, March 2007