Urban Regeneration Companies: A Consultation Paper
1. Introduction
The Cities Review and Innovation
The Review of Scotland's Cities published on 9 January 2003 recognised Scotland's track record in delivering social and economic change in innovative, joined-up ways. However, it also warned that Scotland must continue to learn from effective approaches from outside the country. "We must," the Cities Review report concluded, "remain open and receptive to new ideas and must proactively seek to exchange information on what works and what doesn't."
The Executive's Response - Building Better Cities
In its response to the Cities Review, Building Better Cities - Delivering Growth and Opportunities, the Executive made a number of key commitments, including:
- 90 million over the next 3 years to support growth and opportunities through a new City Growth Fund; and
- strategic city-region agreements, to be known as the City Vision, to set the priorities for using the City Growth Fund, created in partnership with Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) and other key stakeholders.
Urban Regeneration Companies
The Executive also indicated its support for innovative service delivery vehicles such as Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) - where these come forward from consultation.
This paper marks the start of that consultation and sets out the context for the use of innovative delivery vehicles in accelerating growth and delivering regeneration. It seeks to challenge you, to test existing structures and initiatives against different models of delivery.
We want to know from you - as individual organisations or through joint responses from groupings such as CPPs - how you think delivery of regeneration initiatives could be improved and whether you see a role for URCs in contributing to that improvement.
The paper also explains how interested parties can enter into discussions with the Executive on taking forward their ideas, the practical support the Executive is offering, and, for interested partnerships, invites expressions of interest for Pathfinder URC pilot status.