Pathfinder

The view from Betty Pullen’s window in Langley, Rochdale, is of boarded-up derelict houses. A pile of unwanted belongings, including a rusty pram and broken bedside table, lie abandoned not far from her back door and rats can be frequently spotted foraging around for food.

Pullen, a member of the Langley Tenants’ and Residents’ Environment Board, lives on the edge of two rows of houses that have for the past two years been earmarked for demolition by the Oldham-Rochdale market renewal pathfinder. But despite her proximity, she knows nothing about when the houses will finally be knocked down or what will be built in their place.

“No one has come knocking on my door to tell me what’s going on. After all, what’s it got to do with me? I only live right on the doorstep of it all,” says a frustrated Pullen.

“I have no idea who runs the pathfinder and no idea how to get in touch with him. All I know is that no chief executive has ever shown his face round here.”

Pullen’s concerns were echoed on Thursday last week by an Audit Commission report. It said that pathfinders must “raise their game” if they are to create communities that people want to live in (HT 18 February, page 8). To do this, the report said that pathfinders should articulate their aims for housing more clearly to residents living within market renewal communities. It also said that pathfinders need to stop focusing on the needs of individual local authorities and look at the area as a whole.

But in Rochdale, residents feel anything but involved in pathfinder decisions.

The Rochdale Federation of Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations has been inundated with complaints from people like Pullen and from concerned local groups, all of whom feel badly left out of the planning of the future of their communities. It’s not that they object to the demolition of their homes and neighbourhoods – they simply feel excluded and powerless.

The problem, however, is not an absence of consultation. On the contrary – if anything, there has been too much, and tenants’ and residents’ organisations have complained of “consultation fatigue”.

Chief among the attempts to fathom local opinion was a 12-page borough-wide survey conducted by pollster MORI for the pathfinder two years ago. However, many people felt that they had already been asked many of the questions before by agencies like the primary care trust, the Safer Communities Partnership and the council.

Similarly, the pathfinder has set up a workshop and a touring consultation bus to further gather opinions.

But the workshop will only be held during the day on a weekday when many people will be at work, and even then these initiatives will be of no use to Pullen and her neighbours – they are targeted at tenants and residents affected by the “second phase” of the renewal programme, not the demolition in the first-phase areas of Langley, Cloverhall and Bellshill.

So there isn’t a lack of consultation: it is just the wrong sort of consultation.

The residents feel that they have been repeatedly asked for their opinions but have not seen any action. The result is that they have become disengaged. “The problem is that consultation is often done in a way that is not meaningful and accessible,” explains David Bartlett, the chief executive of RoFTRA.

To be honest, I don’t really know what exactly the pathfinder does

Much heat, no light

Concerns have also been raised about the funding for programmes being spent and withdrawn without reference to local people in housing market renewal areas within Rochdale. People are unclear about what projects are up and running and what they are aiming to achieve.

For instance, residents in Cloverhall and Bellshill were angered when a void patrol team, paid for by the pathfinder, was suddenly stopped without consultation.

The team had driven around the area boarding up and securing void properties. This was extremely popular with local residents who felt that it was helping to make their area a safer place to live.

“Consultation doesn’t mean anything if you can’t take it anywhere,” says Bartlett. “There is no mechanism to involve residents in actually creating solutions. The way to do this would be to work with local groups that actually understand the needs and desires of their community as a whole.

“Local community volunteers pick up a lot of knowledge, they have an understanding of their communities way beyond any housing market renewal officer, or myself for that matter. They have an understanding at ground level and this is what you need if you want to create the sustainable communities the government says it wants.”

Carl Cooper, chair of the Langley Tower Blocks Association for the past 15 years, is the sort of person the pathfinder should be consulting. He’s a well-known figure on his estate, which consists of three large tower blocks on the top of a hill that overlooks the whole of Rochdale, and he prides himself on keeping abreast of what’s going on. “I’ve worked round here for a good few years and there’s not many that know as much as Carl, or who warrant the respect that he does,” explains Maddie Stern, a Rochdale and Oldham community engagement officer at RoFTRA.

Cooper attends the neighbourhood action meetings for Langley, organised by the pathfinder officer for the area, which have run every three months for the past year.

But he says there is no clear channel for the suggestions made in the meetings to be turned into action by the pathfinder.

The result is that people feel that they are not being listened to.

Putting up walls

A particular issue of contention is to do with the new fences and walls that are being put up around people’s homes throughout Langley by the pathfinder. People have been asked whether they would like a fence or a wall, but then end up getting the opposite to what they had asked for. “It’s dictation, not communication,” says Cooper.

It’s like we’re a threat to the pathfinder because we know more about the area than they do. Either that, or they think that we’re just stupid because we live in social housing. It’s a joke and it’s not fair to the people of Rochdale

“What we’re unhappy about is that the people who live here and understand local concerns are being excluded from improving their own communities,” he explains.

“It’s like we’re a threat to the pathfinder because we know more about the area than they do. Either that, or they think we’re just stupid because we live in social housing. It’s a joke and it’s not fair to the people of Rochdale.”

Cooper says that all representative groups in the pathfinder area, such as his own, should be formally involved as part of the consultation. This means helping to devise specific improvements for the communities they live in. The pathfinder should also ensure that community consultation, such as workshops and the touring consultation bus, is done on evenings and weekends. This will allow everyone to have an opportunity to have an input.

Another linchpin of the community is Anne Black, a member of the Bellshill Tenants’ and Residents’ Association for the past 17 years. She spends up to four nights a week, throughout the year, arranging activities like football and swimming for local kids aged between seven and 16. She also runs a small community drop-in centre where they can hang out and play pool. As a result she has built up a good relationship with the kids, as well as with their parents.

But like Cooper and Pullen, Black feels that the Oldham and Rochdale pathfinder is not tapping into her understanding of local difficulties, needs and concerns. “I’ve never been consulted by the pathfinder; to be honest I don’t really know what exactly the pathfinder does,” she says.

Useful feedback

Staff at the pathfinder admit that the consultation process has been patchy.

“The organisations involved in the housing market renewal process and in providing local services generally do try to coordinate our efforts, including consultation, but we don’t always do as well as people might expect of us,” says Martin Hellewell, a spokesman for the pathfinder. “We are continually trying to improve the way we do things and this feedback from residents helps us see where more effort may be needed.”

He also admitted that while the pathfinder did value the involvement of local people, there was a limit to how much say they could really have. “Decisions about the funding of some schemes are taken at a whole-pathfinder level and despite our best efforts we don’t always succeed in getting the right information to the people who want it about how and why decisions are taken.”

On the subject of the fencing project in Langley, he added: “We tried to make it clear that different boundary materials would be used in different areas to give them a distinctive appearance and that although local people’s views would be taken into account, the decision on what was used where would be taken by the architects for the scheme.”

Meanwhile, Cooper is hopeful that things are about to get better. He says one good thing to come out of the frustration of locals is the setting up of a new tenant association on the Langley estate, drawing new people into the process.

As Housing Today went to press, he was looking forward to a first meeting with senior staff at the pathfinder, due to take place on Tuesday, where he hoped they might agree on how the community could be more involved in future. “It’s good that they admit they’re a little bit wrong, but they’re a bloody lot wrong.

“We’ve had tenants out with banners – it’s terrible that you’ve got to go to these lengths to get anywhere.”