Overview
Elevate is one of nine Housing Market Renewal pathfinders, charged by Government with revitalising failing housing markets in the former mill towns in what is now called Pennine Lancashire. The project began in 2003 and will last for 10 to 15 years. To date, Elevate has attracted £167 million of government funding to the housing market renewal programme.
A major part of the programme will focus on improving the quality and diversity of the housing stock in the towns, but the challenge is greater than that. Sustainable neighbourhoods and a healthy housing market will not be created through housing renewal alone. Elevate is working with public and private sector partners to improve economic prosperity, the environment, community safety, cohesion, educational attainment, health and connectivity and to build up the image of the area. Together, these activities form a “transformational agenda” which will make Pennine Lancashire a place where more people choose to live, work, visit and relax.
Elevate is a legally constituted company whose members include the local authorities of Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale and Lancashire County Council.
Involving residents
Elevate’s most important partners are the people of Pennine Lancashire. We, and our local authority partners, are committed to engaging communities across the pathfinder in planning for the future. Using new technology and creative activity, Elevate is developing new methods to engage communities to ensure residents have a stake in their futures.
Background to the pathfinder area
The pathfinder includes the inner urban areas of Blackburn, Darwen, Accrington, Church, Clayton-le-Moors, Burnley, Brierfield, Nelson, Colne, Bacup and Stacksteads.
Pennine Lancashire offers tremendous potential for economic development and regeneration, and significant investments in public and private sector projects are taking place. Building Schools for the Future, SureStart and Local Investment Finance Trust (LIFT) projects, as well as retail and business investment, will see hundreds of millions of pounds coming in over the next 10-15 years alongside the Elevate investment. A revitalised housing market will be a central component of the effort to sustain this progress.
However, the problems with the housing market are deep-seated and challenging. There are 85,000 properties in the pathfinder, 80% of which are privately owned. Of the houses in private ownership, a significant proportion (16%) is privately rented housing. There is a limited choice of housing types in the area. Two-thirds of the stock is terraced, with small terraced houses predominating, and half of the housing was built before 1919.
Almost a quarter of the houses in the pathfinder are unfit by Government standards, compared with only 7% unfit in the country as a whole. There is a similar proportion in disrepair. In the Index of Deprivation, Pennine Lancashire has five of the thirty worst wards in the housing ‘domain’ nationally. Many houses are empty and have been so for long periods of time: long-term vacancy rates are as high as 10% in some urban areas, with an average over the pathfinder of 6.3%.
These conditions, along with problems of community cohesion, poor health, and low educational attainment, are both the causes and the results of declining housing markets.
Achievements
Elevate’s long-term goals are to reduce the number and percentage of properties that are vacant, unfit, and at risk of low demand. Elevate also aims to reduce the percentage of low value house sales to be more in line with the regional average, and to reduce the number and percentage of people moving out of the area.
To achieve these goals Elevate’s initial aims are to rebalance the housing market by reducing the oversupply of small, unfit properties that no longer suit modern house buyers; preparing land for new development, and making improvements to houses where the market shows signs of stabilising. Elevate also funds initiatives to support communities to contribute to strategy and master plans and works to improve the public environment through refurbishments to the street scene and parks and open spaces.
As of April 2006, Elevate’s achievements were:
- 2,500 homes refurbished
- 850 empty or unfit properties demolished to make room for new housing
- 38,000 homes benefiting from improved services through neighbourhood management
- 23,600 homes benefiting from environmental improvements.
In addition, the private sector built 750 new homes in the pathfinder area. Over the next decade it is expected that more than 4,000 new homes will be built for sale and rent.
Projects
Other Elevate projects that span Pennine Lancashire include Constructing The Future, a skills training scheme that will ensure local labour is trained and employed for building and demolition work, and HomeSure, a scheme to support good standards among landlords through accreditation.
Design and Heritage Pennine Lancashire (DHPL) is a partnership between the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), English Heritage and Elevate to ensure good design is high on the agenda of future housing interventions. Two historic environment and design specialists are based in Elevate’s offices, acting as expert advisors and working with public and private sector regeneration teams and local communities to help deliver high quality renewal schemes.
Elevate appointed consultants Anthony Wilson and Yvette Livesey to advise on how to take a range of imaginative proposals to use sport and culture to improve the image of the area and benefit the economy. Concepts included a fashion tower, football theme park, extreme sports centre, new public spaces in town centres, canalside living, and the re-naming of the area as ‘Pennine Lancashire’.
Elevate’s chief executive is Max Steinberg and the chairman is David Taylor.
Elevate operates with funding from Communities and Local Government.