Race riot towns bring in Northern Irish mediators

Mediators from the Northern Ireland peace process have been called in to heal the rifts that sparked race riots in Oldham and Burnley in summer 2001.

Elevate East Lancashire, a housing market renewal pathfinder that has just been awarded more than £100m of government funds, is understood to be negotiating with mediators.

A formal announcement is expected soon.

It has also emerged that Mediation Northern Ireland, a registered charity, has been working with communities in Oldham for the past 18 months at the behest of the Home Office's community cohesion panel.

Elevate could not comment on its own mediation plans.

But it is understood that a meeting between the pathfinder, the area's five councils – Burnley, Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Pendle – and a conflict resolution company is planned for next week.

Mediation Northern Ireland confirmed that it has held "tentative" talks with Elevate.

The negotiations indicate the pathfinder's acknowledgement of the depth of racial tension in East Lancashire.

Burnley alone has seven councillors from the far-right British National Party and the town hit the headlines in February when Conservative Party leader Michael Howard visited to launch a stinging attack on the BNP.

Ted Cantle, head of the community cohesion panel and author of a 2001 report on that summer's race riots, welcomed the move. He said: "Trying to understand why communities fracture is crucial and the means by which we repair those fractures are often similar, even if their causes are different.

"In the past, we have been very bad at developing and sharing these techniques."

Mediation Northern Ireland's work in Oldham involved organising a series of workshops with community leaders. Its findings will be reported at the end of this month.

Consultant Paul Hutchinson, who led the workshops, said: "Rather than saying 'this is what happened in Northern Ireland and this is the way to do it', we offered a model of learning from our own experience.

"We also wanted to learn about the race issues because we have not had a very diverse community in Northern Ireland, but now we are starting to."

The news came as the Chartered Institute of Housing published a report today urging housing agencies to get more involved in community cohesion.

Visiting Blackburn on 26 March, deputy prime minister John Prescott praised Elevate East Lancashire and awarded it £68m of government funding.

Along with other grants from the Housing Corporation, regeneration quango English Partnerships and the North-west Development Agency, this adds up to more than £100m for two years.

Max Steinberg, Elevate's chief executive, said: "East Lancashire's densely packed terraced streets will be opened up to bring the distinctive surrounding countryside into the towns.

"The canal that runs through the towns will find new life as manufacturing sites are relocated to make way for, in various places, new homes, live-work spaces, recreation areas and wildlife."