East Lancashire pathfinder chief prepares for action …

Delayed at an airport in Northern Ireland by the bad weather that swept the country this week, David Taylor was in a familiar situation. The new chair of the East Lancashire market renewal pathfinder has plenty of experience in waiting, as do his colleagues in the other eight areas.

It's only a little more than a year since a group of councils slapped their unprecedented bids for market renewal on ministers' desks, backed by evidence of collapsing markets on a scale not seen within living memory.

But for those involved, it seems like longer – despite the glimmer of hope last summer when deputy prime minister John Prescott announced the pathfinders would be funded.

Taylor knows only too well that the waiting has to end, and soon. He knows how high expectations have risen among local people.

  But he is having to pull together a £1bn programme, on which most of the key questions have yet to be answered.

"It's frustrating because you don't need to hire many consultants to understand the problem. It's there for all to see," he says.

The facts are alarming. Almost a quarter of all houses in the five council districts of Burnley, Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Pendle, and Rossendale are unfit for habitation. An estimated 80,000 homes are in low demand, changing hands for as little as a few hundred pounds. All but 1000 are in the private sector. In all, 100,000 houses need attention and 9000 are likely to be cleared.

You don’t need to hire many consultants to understand the problem. It’s there for all to see

David Taylor, chair, East Lancashire market renewal pathfinder

Nevertheless, Taylor admits with a groan that scoping studies are first on his to-do list. Quantifying the problem, finding out exactly what the pathfinder is dealing with and coordinating the five councils involved are prerequisites for action.

Further research is not going to impress or fire the imagination of local people, however, so Taylor has a confidence booster up his sleeve: an early action programme worth £1m or more will show what can be done and establish the pathfinder's determination to get on with the job. Selective demolition, environmental works, and action on crime and drugs are all in the frame.

That will lead on to the main programme, funded with a share of the £500m pathfinder cash on offer. Eventually, over 15 years, Taylor plans to tap into at least six public funding streams. English Partnerships, the North-west Regional Development Agency, the European Union: all will be pressed into service.

Yet that will be nothing compared to the beeline Taylor is making for the private sector. He wants lenders on board and freely admits the project will not get far without them.

This means private developers must be enticed to plunge into areas they currently shun. Taylor expects them to be utterly conservative in their outlook and is prepared to deal with this: "We have a market full of negative equity and it is in the lenders' interests to turn it into positive equity. In a stagnant market, people don't borrow. I will make the case for enlightened self-interest."

Taylor, a former chief executive of English Partnerships and Amec Developments, insists the turnaround can begin in only a year or two. There will be no "reverse Highland clearances", with people shunted from South to North in a gigantic social engineering project, but the pathfinder will create a genuine housing market within the region.