Posted on February 17th, 2010
Housing in relation to regeneration
The aspiration for the work is to forge a new culture and systems of working together within Durham and beyond. A focus on ‘whole systems’ thinking, including exploring the existing schemes and seeing what has worked well or less well. Where greater joint working could happen but hasn’t, the question that will be asked is, “why not?” The work will also consider barriers that exist due to local factors, regional factors and national policy, performance and funding arrangements. Key analysis will be drawn by mapping public spending and a ‘deep dive analysis’ of housing and regeneration, assessing resource alignment, duplication, scope for efficiency savings and service improvements.
Durham is focusing on housing and regeneration and is currently undertaking an analysis of the impacts of the totality of funding which it receives and the way it is configured on some of the county’s more challenging areas. Durham’s initial findings show that the housing-related public funding they received in 2007-08 was spread across 13 significant funding streams and a number of smaller scale streams. Durham also benefited from over £200m of private householder investment spent on major home improvements. They are now investigating the specific local impact of this complex funding landscape and how it can be reshaped to maximise use of both public and private pounds spent in Durham to meet the future needs of residents.
Finally, as Durham is the only pilot area exploring housing issues it is keen to connect with national bodies and government agencies to add value to the work through connections and knowledge of work undertaken elsewhere.
Visit Durham’s website for more information, including a copy of their interim report and a video from their stakeholder event.
Jan Hillary, media enquiries
telephone: 0191 273 7664
email: jan.hillary@durham.gov.uk
Jenny Haworth, Project Manager, Head of Planning and Performance, Durham County Council
telephone: 0191 3836598
email: jenny.haworth@durham.gov.uk
Di Neale, Programme Lead
telephone: 07983 596375
email: diane@dianeneale.com
Category: pilot
