Policies and Programmes for Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods: Recent English Experience

This paper sets out to review to what extent policies aimed at improving the quality of ‘council-built’ neighbourhoods achieved their objectives in the period 1975–2000, and the relevance of the experience for current policy. It discusses the main approaches to and diagnoses of problem estates, including the failure of the welfare state, the absence of enterprise, the failure of housing management, ‘housing is not enough’ and ‘effort fragmentation’, and provides an evaluation of the impacts of the main programmes, based mainly on the results of official evaluations. The paper notes the difficulties in making assessments of impacts in this area due to data shortcomings, but concludes that over 20 years of policies and programmes did not resolve the complex problems of these estates, nor reposition council-built estates from the bottom of the residential hierarchy. It suggests the reason for this failure was partly that the macro-economic climate and other government policies were countervailing, but also that policy lacked both clear goals and a good understanding of the problems to be faced. It also notes that housing improvements were often compromised by the failure to deal with wider problems. The paper argues that recent policy shows more promise, and seeks to better integrate mainstream spending programmes with area initiatives, although there is little evidence yet on how this is really working.