In the soporific lull of Christmas, I nearly let a wee nugget pass me by. My huge thanks to UKR's own Ralph Ward for drawing it to my attention. It was an item on the BBC website on 27 December which carried the shock story "Southend experienced the biggest house price rise of any town or city during 2012, says the Halifax. The Essex town saw prices rise by 15%, compared with a 1% average fall across the UK as a whole."
Well now! This news may cause gasps of incredulity, if not extreme mirth, among the chattering property classes ("you're 'aving a larf!!" might be the response) and to old Thames Gateway lags like me, and several of my old codgers. But actually, it should come as no surprise at all.
Well now! This news may cause gasps of incredulity, if not extreme mirth, among the chattering property classes ("you're 'aving a larf!!" might be the response) and to old Thames Gateway lags like me, and several of my old codgers. But actually, it should come as no surprise at all.
Southend was a "Johnny-come-lately" to the whole Gateway lark, left out
of the original 1994 vision because it lacked the huge hectares of
desperate brownfield land that was the Gateway's supposed USP. When the
Gateway was given a fresh heave-to by the Labour government in 2000, south Essex was brought in from the cold, partly because of some serious
business and growth possibilities, (the construction of a giant
container port and the expansion of the airport had both already
progressed beyond the usual pipe dreams), partly because it looked
neater on the map, and partly (I suspect) because of realpolitik: this
was still at that point a Labour enclave in the wider Tory heartland of
rural Essex
When the Gateway began to get rolling seriously as part of the Prescott Sustainable Communities Plan (remember? It is less than a decade since), Southend was the recipient of the largest slug of ODPM money, helping to fund a new university campus in the town centre, a new link from the town centre to the seaside and the resort side of town, and various other bits and pieces to help rebuild it as a commercial location and attractive local and regional centre.
I understand that funding Southend in this way was controversial within ODPM. There was no obvious immediate giant housing dividend, and anyway wasn't funding new colleges the job of DfES? (Pause for hollow laughter). But what the Gateway team of the time (led by the late and irreplaceable John Sienkiewicz, aided and abetted by the aforementioned Ralph Ward) understood was that regeneration, in an unliveable and unlovable place like the Gateway, had initially to be about building a sense of quality and identity. Get that right, and the housing would follow. This is a lesson that has been lost on the less clever regenerators and bureaucrats who have since followed, in the Gateway and elsewhere, where master-plans for vast housing developments, dumped into what are still no-hoper locations in terms of identity or demand, gather dust.
Today, the college is an academic success, the airport is now open, and Southend is a place which is in demand. Whisper it quietly, but Southend is actually a Gateway success.
When the Gateway began to get rolling seriously as part of the Prescott Sustainable Communities Plan (remember? It is less than a decade since), Southend was the recipient of the largest slug of ODPM money, helping to fund a new university campus in the town centre, a new link from the town centre to the seaside and the resort side of town, and various other bits and pieces to help rebuild it as a commercial location and attractive local and regional centre.
I understand that funding Southend in this way was controversial within ODPM. There was no obvious immediate giant housing dividend, and anyway wasn't funding new colleges the job of DfES? (Pause for hollow laughter). But what the Gateway team of the time (led by the late and irreplaceable John Sienkiewicz, aided and abetted by the aforementioned Ralph Ward) understood was that regeneration, in an unliveable and unlovable place like the Gateway, had initially to be about building a sense of quality and identity. Get that right, and the housing would follow. This is a lesson that has been lost on the less clever regenerators and bureaucrats who have since followed, in the Gateway and elsewhere, where master-plans for vast housing developments, dumped into what are still no-hoper locations in terms of identity or demand, gather dust.
Today, the college is an academic success, the airport is now open, and Southend is a place which is in demand. Whisper it quietly, but Southend is actually a Gateway success.
John was always really proud about the educational institutions in the Gateway - I hope that the beneficiaries are too!
Hardly credible reading when the only actual evidence/statistic provided is on rising house prices.. After all the UK has been through in recent years are we still taking house price booms as a sign of 'success' in 'regeneration'?
Legacy? Sustainability? Affordable housing? Local skills base and entreprenuerial activity? Local economy sustaining local buyers as opposed to commuters/incomers (displacing low-income local residents)? etc. etc. etc.
'Gateway' or 'commuter sump'? It might well be a success story as per the rhetoric (such as beloved by the 'chattering property classes'), but where are the actual figures, the actual evidence? (in fact much the same questions that we can pose on the Coalition UK Govt's policies).