Homes England funding is now available for regeneration and new build: how can the sector partner on these projects?
Two case studies show how partners can work together on regeneration schemes, from inception through to completion
In asociation with:
Cobalt Housing
Stonedale Crescent, Liverpool
Stonedale Crescent is a poorly designed Radburn-style estate. There are dark areas and places where gangs assemble, problems with crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB), fly-tipping and issues associated with poor property layout. Permeability and movement throughout Stonedale is restricted due to large parking bays and unused garages. Despite its challenges, Stonedale is close to a thriving economic area and demand for homes remains high. “The estate is not designed for modern-day living,” says Louise Davies, director of growth and development at Cobalt Housing, the Liverpool-based association driving a £40m regeneration.
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Cobalt is considering all areas of the estate outside of its “red line” ownership to ensure that, longer term, more can be offered to existing and new residents. Over the next five years, Cobalt aims to transform Stonedale into a safer, cleaner and greener neighbourhood of refurbished and new build properties.
“We are already on site with a new build scheme of hopefully 88 units, which is one of the key components of our regeneration plan,” says Ms Davies. “The integration of old and new, and how we change some of the street scenes and the connectivity between the two schemes is key. The real challenge is unpicking the public realm, estate highways and reconfiguring the layout.”
Tenure will be a mix of shared ownership, rent to buy and affordable rented properties. “We want to introduce mobility within the neighbourhood [with options for] first-time buyers and better quality private rented sector housing,” says Ms Davies. “The inclusion of private stock in the improvement programme is important for the regeneration of the area, and is an element we will not overlook. It’s about providing choice for customers at varying stages of their housing journey.”
Ms Davies is pleased to see the sector increase its focus on regeneration schemes following the recent publication of Homes England’s five-year strategic plan. “Regeneration requires a different type of project management,” she explains. For example, resident engagement is crucial. Cobalt has brought in Place Capital Group as a master-planner and project manager to ensure Stonedale’s regeneration is impactive and long lasting. “There’s a non-standard element of regeneration that goes above traditional new build schemes,” she says. “You have to think outside the box.”
In numbers
88
Planned unit size of new build scheme, as part of the regeneration
£40m
Cost of regeneration of Stonedale Crescent in Liverpool
Together Housing
Shadsworth and Whitebirk, Blackburn, and Brighouse, Calderdale
Together Housing, which manages 38,000 homes in the North and the Midlands, is committed to a programme of placemaking activities. Placemaking is different to masterplanning, says chief executive Kevin Ruth. While a masterplan identifies the investment potential of a site, “placemaking is about creating pride in a community” by improving conditions on the ground.
Together is regenerating a number of deprived estates – including Shadsworth and Whitebirk in Blackburn, Lancashire, and Brighouse in Calderdale, Yorkshire. It has partnered with Place Capital Group to deliver the strategy.
Take 850-home Shadsworth. It has suffered from poor open spaces and limited community infrastructure. A placemaking plan will replant hedgerows, mend verges, remodel homes and restore pride. A community centre is also being built, along with zero-carbon affordable homes, with the intention of bringing the stock up to 963 homes. “While we’re improving existing stock and increasing choice and tenure, we’re also improving the way we look after the green spaces,” says Mr Ruth. Interventions to tackle worklessness, health inequalities and poor educational attainment levels have also been introduced. At 450-home Whitebirk, the park has become a focal point for ASB. It is hoped better use of green space will reduce ASB and add around 43 more homes, while a mix of tenures will “create a more balanced community”. In 865-home Brighouse, there will be refurbishment of existing homes, new zero-carbon affordable homes and improvements to the public realm.
During these projects, some residents will be relocated and be entitled to disturbance payments and support.
Together and Place Capital Group do not have a traditional housing association/developer relationship, says Mr Ruth. “A traditional developer [would] come up with an architect’s design and an appraisal to build [on a site],” he says. “With Place Capital Group, it’s led by a desire to improve [an estate], and it’s more broadly focused in terms of the interventions we can make.”
That includes working with communities. Place Capital Group has been supporting this, says Mr Ruth. “In Shadsworth, it [created] a community [consultation] hub showing masterplans and drawings. Placemaking isn’t all about capital investment. It’s about management interventions and community engagement.”
“A successful neighbourhood is citizen-centred, mixed tenured and imaginatively conceived”
It’s hard work managing a social housing portfolio. There’s rent to be collected, homes to maintain, repairs to resolve, components to be replaced, anti-social behaviour to be managed and tenants to be supported.
To make matters more challenging, social landlords are working against a backdrop of crippling demand, with long waiting lists and dwindling numbers of affordable homes. In 2021-22, there was a net loss of 14,100 affordable homes in England and, at the last count, 1.2 million households were waiting for an affordable home to rent. This is a profound issue in more deprived areas, with many prospective tenants relying on social housing to escape homelessness, domestic abuse, or wholly unsuitable temporary accommodation.
Open market rental schemes in areas with high levels of competition require homes to be well-presented to secure a tenant. But with social housing, there is little incentive. After a hasty house clearance and only the most necessary repairs carried out, keys are handed over to grateful customers, whose expectations are generally low, given what they have been used to, or experienced.
So what if development and asset management teams began working together more, to find scope to build homes in existing neighbourhoods? What if that process was intended to provide a lift to these places, both physically and in terms of tenant pride and well-being? This is what placemaking and regeneration should mean. Are tenants flourishing? Are neighbourhoods thriving, or simply just operating? Can they be made better? And do they provide scope for new homes?
These are the questions that Place Capital Group asks its housing association partners. As a development manager and the UK’s only impact-led estate regenerator, our approach to partnership is to challenge; to work with our social housing partners to think differently in places where obstacles to development success appear stubborn and where financial innovation is key. After years of regenerating some of our most challenged places, we know that high-quality assets are only part of the big picture. A successful neighbourhood is also about being a great place to live – citizen-centred, mixed tenured, imaginatively conceived and underpinned by excellent placemaking. The most important stakeholders are not the developer or banks, but those that will be directly impacted: the residents.
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