What are learning points?
Learning Points share what people have learned from their experience in regeneration - from working or talking together, or from research into issues and evaluation of what is happening. Learning Points can help people and organizations to improve their practice through identifying what works and what doesn't.
What is this learning point about?
This Learning Point is developed from an event held in May 2010, which provided a perspective on town centre regeneration from a private developers point of view.
This was set in the context of the particular experiences of Stenhousemuir town centre regeneration project, where a public and private sector funded partnership helped deliver a new town centre during extremely difficult times.
The event was hosted by the Town Centres and Local High Streets learning network, MacDonald Estates and Falkirk Council.
What are the important issues?
- How can we develop public and private sector partnerships that allow for the delivery of large scale town centre regeneration projects, during the current economic crisis?
- How can we develop skills and knowledge that allows for respective understanding of the roles and responsibilities of all staff involved in public and private sector partnerships?
- What financing tools and funding mechanisms do we need to develop in order to support large scale town centre regeneration projects?
- What do we need to do now to prepare for the economic upturn?
- What can we learn from experiences of successful public and private sector partnerships that have delivered town centre regeneration projects?
What do we know already?
- The current economic climate has had a detrimental impact on the number of town centre regeneration projects being delivered. Previous funding mechanisms and models are no longer viable and new funding streams and partnerships have to be considered.
- Town centre regeneration projects can no longer be led solely by the public sector. Severely restricted budgets mean that a fresh approach to kick-starting such large scale projects and the development of new funding tools, are required.
- The days of sufficient borrowing opportunities for economic development and regeneration activities are gone. New funding mechanisms such as the Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas (JESSICA) fund and the Town Centre Regeneration Fund have to be considered if such activities are to take place.
- Traditionally, development funding has been procured by the developer with little direct ongoing relationships between the public sector and funders. The current economic climate and the need to develop new public and private sector partnerships provides an opportunity to develop such relationships in order to benefit all involved.
- The role of retail as an economic mainstay in Scotland is still evident. However, the public's shopping habits are evolving, with a rapid increase in online shopping over recent years.
- Our town centres are hubs of activity, with the country's economics fuelled by retailing trade. The retail sector alone is worth over £19 billion to the national economy and provides 240,000 jobs across Scotland.
- However, it is projected that the proportion of household retail spend will have dropped by 25% by 2025. This, coupled with a projected growth of 12% per annum in online shopping, will have a huge impact on Scotland's town centres.
What have we learned?
Town centre policies and procedures
- Recent analysis [ 1] of local authorities across Scotland shows that there is a high level of involvement in development town centre strategies, supplementary planning guidance, retail studies and site analysis/feasibility. However, there is much less Local Authority involvement in Compulsory Purchase Order procedures, town centre health checks and site assembly activity, this needs to change.
- Current, successful national policies include town centre strategies, location and sequential tests, network and retail hierarchies and environment and design. However Compulsory Purchase Order policy and town centre delivery policies were identified as being the least successful.
Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO)
- There is a need to build a case for using Compulsory Purchase Orders as a development tool. They are used much more widely in England, however in Scotland, only 24% of local authorities have used such orders over the last five years.
- Assistance and expertise that could help overcome these issues include simpler CPO procedures, more examples of good practice in site assembly being available and Scottish Government economic assistance.
Funding
- The Tax Increment Finance (TIF) model should be seriously considered to enable funding of town centre regeneration projects. TIFs allow for infrastructure development to be borrowed against future tax revenues. This is currently the method being adopted by North Lanarkshire Council to take forward the major Ravenscraig regeneration project.
Gaining a greater understanding of the current situation
- Local authorities have highlighted that the analysis of vitality and viability indicators are the most important current policy area that required further research. Furthermore, research into non-retail trends including office, leisure, culture and tourism was also identified. Areas considered problematic when delivering town centre developments include ownership issues, site assembly, funding and heritage constraints.
There is a role for the private sector to assist the public sector in understanding site marketing and land values.
What have we learned from the Stenhousemuir experience?
- Given the economic climate within which the regeneration of Stenhousemuir town centre took place, this large scale project could not have happened without the public and private sector partnership that was developed between Falkirk Council and MacDonald Estates plc.
- Land assembly for the project involved the acquisition of 42 properties and the demolition of a number of out dated town centre buildings. A joint approach in negotiating with property owners was undertaken and this resulted in 41 out of the 42 properties being successfully acquired.
- The role of the District Valuer was imperative in the land assembly and acquisition stage. They provided values on all properties which confirmed a base line for negotiations, confirming to all occupiers that they were being treated fairly and providing a reference point to work from where negotiations led on to a CPO situation.
- It was also extremely important that the community understood that all parties were being treated in the same way during the acquisition process and that no one was seen to benefit by holding out for a perceived 'better deal'. The District Valuer provided that benchmark in the negotiation.
- One property to be acquired involved a two year CPO process, where a public enquiry eventually ruled in favour of Falkirk Council. MacDonald Estates covered the cost of the CPO process, therefore making the whole process much more achievable. Officials within the Council also had a major role to play in keeping senior staff and elected members fully up to date in the CPO process - having their backing from the outset made the process much easier to achieve.
- Being realistic and carefully managing public perceptions and expectations is crucial. In Stenhousemuir it took a total of five years from commencing the project and beginning the land assembly stage, until the first phase of the physical build began.
What next?
- The Town Centres and Local High Streets learning network supports organisations and individuals to improve the way that Scottish towns are made more vital, vibrant and fit for purpose to meet the needs of the local communities they serve. It is led by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration and links up with the learning promoted by other parts of the Scottish Government.
- The issues identified at this event will help form the future programme of activity for the learning network, which focuses on supporting practitioners in the area of whole town/town centre strategy development and delivery.
- The learning network provides support and helps people to exchange information and ideas. Activities include events to share good practice information; identifying and publishing case studies; and developing other opportunities for sharing good practice through study visits and long term working groups.
- The learning network has two key priorities over the next year:
Performance Management in Towns: Helping practitioners to understand how to effectively monitor and evaluate the vitality and viability of towns.
Developing Strategies for Towns: Supporting practitioners to develop and implement town centre and whole town strategies that look beyond the all important retail core of a town and take a holistic approach to regeneration.
- You can join the learning network by visiting our website or by contacting Yvonne Gavan (Network Coordinator) on 0141 271 3734.
- The Scottish Government has started a programme of work to identify and share good practice in the use of CPOs. As part of this programme, the Scottish Government will revise Circular 42/1976 (partly updated by Circular 21/1991) to provide up to date and focused CPO guidance which will:
endorse properly used CPOs as important tools to assemble land needed for projects to deliver economic recovery, social change, effective and efficient regeneration and sustainable economic growth;
encourage authorities to proactively use CPOs, where appropriate; and
set out comprehensive step-by-step plain English guidance on the appropriate and effective use of CPOs.
The Scottish Government aim to publish the circular by the end of March 2011. This is a major undertaking as it will update guidance that is over 30 years old. If you would like to find out more information on this exercise, please contact Stephen Jones on 0131 244 1430.
Further information
Notes
1. Scottish Town Centres: Still the Life and Soul? June 2009[ http://www.gvagrimley.co.uk/Documents/research/ScotlandTownCentresJune2009.pdf]
Scottish Centre for Regeneration
This document is published by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration, which is part of the Scottish Government. We support our public, private and voluntary sector delivery partners to become more effective at:
- regenerating communities and tackling poverty
- developing more successful town centres and local high streets
- creating and managing mixed and sustainable communities
- making housing more energy efficient
- managing housing more efficiently and effectively
We do this through:
- coordinating learning networks which bring people together to identify the challenges they face and to support them to tackle these through events, networking and capacity building programmes
- identifying and sharing innovation and practice through publishing documents detailing examples of projects and programmes and highlighting lessons learned
- developing partnerships with key players in the housing and regeneration sector to ensure that our activities meet their needs and support their work
Scottish Centre for Regeneration
Scottish Government
Highlander House
58 Waterloo Street
Glasgow
G2 7DA
Tel: 0141 271 3736
Email: contactscr@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Website: www.partnersinregeneration.com
The views expressed in learning points are not necessarily shared by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration or the Scottish Government.
September 2010