New Growth Points were brought in promising to deliver up to 100,000 extra homes and many more new jobs over the next 10 years. So how do they work and what kind of reception have they had so far?

What are growth points?

They are locations, where more new housing, jobs, essential infrastructure, town centre regeneration and higher design and environmental standards should all be delivered together and in an integrated way.

The principles of growth points are:

  • early delivery of housing
  • supporting local partners to achieve sustainable growth
  • working with local partners to ensure infrastructure and service provision keeps pace with growth
  • ensuring effective delivery.
Richard McCarthy, the DCLG’s director general, programmes, policy and innovation, says of them: “They are a bit different to growth areas. They spread housing growth further east and north than the growth areas to where there is economic activity. They are about a different relationship with local government and working on local outcomes. This gets the message across of how you connect regeneration and economic growth.”

Did the government decide on where the growth points would be?

Not exactly. The government invited local authorities, working in partnership, to bid for growth point status. In order to bid for funding, local authorities had to propose at least 20% housing growth above the pre-sustainable communities plan baseline, with overall housing growth of at least 500 homes a year. Bidders also had to set out realistic assessments of additional investment needed for transport, water supply, flooding and sewerage. Late last year the government announced that 29 areas across the country, put forward by 70 local authorities, had won growth point status.

What’s in it for the local authorities?

Local authorities win a share of an initial £40m of funding from government to support growth-related research, masterplanning and capacity-building.

More funding is expected to come from the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, and that will be linked to local area agreements to give maximum flexibility on how the money is spent. But it is not only cash that will be available. DCLG’s McCarthy says: “We’ll send in agencies to work with locations to raise money, intervene and assist as required.”

What’s in it for the government?

If all the proposed growth happens, the initiative would produce around 100,000 extra homes by 2016. McCarthy says: “None of this can control the market. All you can do is to try to make it work to best effect. Our job is to enable the public sector to intervene to achieve success. There is an appetite for local authorities collaborating and we are looking at ways to encourage that.”

What is happening now?

Growth points are spending their initial funding carrying out the researches and plans that will pave the way for the real action (see box, below).

What do the key players say about growth points?

These were some of the comments at a round table discussion on the new growth points organised by developer Cannon Kirk.

Barry Horne, corporate director of city development at Nottingham council, which is a partner in the Three Cities and Three Counties growth point which aims to deliver 81,500 extra homes by 2016: “We can be confident of our aspirations for our city, but we can’t deliver all that is required, and in the Midlands there is the concern that all the attention is focused on the North and the South, leaving the Midlands out. So we think this could help us, but we could do with a stronger national planning context. However, there is a need to see growth points as not just being about the housing agenda.”

John Betty, strategic director of development and major projects at Bath and North East Somerset council, which is a partner in the West of England Partnership growth point, which aims to deliver 46,250 extra homes by 2016: “The money is important as pump priming, but the mindset change is what really matters. It is looking at the broader picture of integrating agencies. This is the first time I have seen something that looks joined up, and that is the big win rather than the money. A lot of the work that we are doing is bringing people together for placemaking so that we can give a developer certainty.”

Richard Page, director, Delph Property Group, which invests in apartments in mixed urban developments: “It is encouraging to see local authorities working together, like Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft coming up with a joint plan. The linking of housing with employment is attractive to us. We looked at a site in Bristol where the main attraction was high employment. In other cities there are plenty of new apartments, but you struggle to find the employment.”

John McGuigan, director of city development, Coventry council, which has the Coventry within the Birmingham, Coventry and Black Country City Region growth point, which aims to deliver 24,000 extra homes by 2026: “The problem is that cities are organic. Coventry’s economy has changed hugely, but I don’t know what it will be in five to ten years’ time. Sustainability is about confidence in government to hold a course. It used to take two years to lose 2000 jobs in manufacturing in the city. Now you can lose 1000 jobs in a month when operations go overseas.
“We have got to be ahead of the game. We have got
to create places where people want to live and stay. But joined-up central government departments will be key to making growth points work.”

Mike Broughton, chief executive officer of developer Cannon Kirk: “We want confidence from the government.”

Sunand Prasad, president-elect of the RIBA and founding partner of architect Penoyre and Prasad: “The way in which we are trying to make a balanced economy work is very difficult. There is the issue: if Coventry is successful, how does that affect Warwick?
“The planning system is key – we need to take as much development as possible out of development control and put as much as possible into plan making.”

What it means to be a growth point

Having growth point status has earned Coventry an initial £250,000 from the government. That is enough to finance studies into drainage, flood plains and water supply. But it is chicken feed compared to the money that the city will need if it is to finance the growth the government wants.

Under the Regional Spatial Strategy, Coventry’s three target levels are to deliver 19,000 homes, 24,000 homes or 44,000 homes by 2026. The local authority has opted for the median figure, but may not be able to stop there. John McGuigan, the council’s director of city development, says: “The government will be pushing us towards the top target. We can sign up to it, but delivery depends on service and infrastructure support.”

And that is where the bill starts to rise. Some £8bn is now being invested in development in the city (in projects such a Cannon Kirk’s Friargate, pictured) and 90% of that is private money. McGuigan estimates that as much as £20bn could be needed to meet the government’s aspirations. He adds that 10% of that figure could have to be spent on public infrastructure. Highways improvements could cost £100m alone.

Still, achieving growth point status seems to have come at the right time for Coventry. Its population was set to grow from around 310,000 to 330,000 over the next 15 years and could now climb to 370,000 on the back of growth point status. Jobs are being created alongside the housing, and in a table of retailers Coventry has the second greatest capacity for growth. That could be why Ikea is building its first city centre store there. McGuigan says: “We focused on turning our economy round so office rental levels are low, but now office developers are seeing the city as a place to get into, and as the area gets more affluent, it attracts more retail.”

Source

RegenerateLive