Regeneration

Regeneration.

      ‘Welcome to the Twoday programme minister. I believe you have come here today to explain the great success you have had with your regeneration initiative in some of our inner cities?’

      ‘Thank you Jim, for that welcome. Yes, it is always a pleasure to come here and talk to you about the successes that this government has achieved.’

      ‘As I understand it, this regeneration initiative was your personal idea which you then sold to the Prime Minister and the treasury as a cost effective way of improving the housing conditions of many people who are stuck in old, damp, cold houses in the inner cities?

      ‘Yes, that about sums it up really. As the minister for inner cities, I have taken it upon myself to get personally involved in improving the housing conditions of people who are unable to move because their houses are unsalable or, in many cases, because they have lived in their home for most of their lives and do not want to move away from the community they know so well to a different area.

      ‘Could you explain how it works then please minister?

      ‘Gladly Jim. We are talking mainly about terraced, three bedroom houses here so the first thing we do is to move residents out from a complete street to temporary housing after buying each house for  a fixed price of £20,00  under a compulsory purchase order. We then demolute the complete street and build flats on the land. We can supply accommodation for more families in the same area than could be achieved by the old fashioned houses.’

      ‘What is the capital cost of each flat?’ asked Jim

      ‘Err, it’s about £55,000.’

      ‘I see, please carry on, what happens then?

      ‘The families that are in temporary accommodation then move into their brand new, modern, warm flats.

      ‘Do all these flats have three bedrooms?’

      ‘Well, no, that would costs too much.’

      ‘How much do people have to pay for these flats and do they get a choice of where they live?’

      ‘Most people cannot afford to buy them as they would have to pay about £100,000 to cover all the costs so they are mainly rented. We cannot offer a choice, of course, as we have to get them populated as soon as possible so that we can get on with the next street. Some people don’t much like living in the high rise flats at first but I am sure they will soon get used to it.’

      ‘A question if I may minister. How much would it have cost to bring those old, terraced houses up to modern standards?’

      ‘Err, well, I suppose, erm. We have not considered that as it is better to make a clean sweep and start again.’

      ‘The BBC has asked two firms of surveyors to inspect a complete street of houses just before they were  ‘demoluted’. Would you like to hazard a guess how much it would to cost to insulate each house, repair any structure as necessary, damp proof them, install double glazing, central heating and new bathrooms and kitchens with a redecoration to the owner’s specification throughout?’

      ‘Well I don’t pretend to be an expert of course so, no, I won’t guess.’

      ‘I can tell you, minister that the figure is £11,534.’ We also carried out a survey of all the residents in that same street and the results were very interesting. Would you like to hear them?’

      ‘Well, err, yes, of course, I am always happy to listen to what people want.’

      ‘I will give you a copy of the report to take away with you minister but I can let you have a verbal executive summary now.’

      ‘98% of the residents did not want to move out. They would be delighted to have their homes upgraded and even pay for most of the work as long as the threat of imminent demolition was removed so that their home would regain some of its value. This would enable them to sell up and move on later if they need to because of family or job reasons. They valued their small gardens and the fact that they had their own front door and three bedrooms. The last thing they wanted was to move into a small two bedroom box in the sky.’

      ‘Now minister, how is the regeneration process going? How many houses have you ‘demoluted’ and how many people are in their new flats and how many are stuck in temporary accommodation?’

      ‘We are making excellent progress. We have demolished 2,300 houses and 1,247 families are cosy in their modern flats.’

      ‘So that means that over 1,000 families are stuck in temporary accommodation. Why is that?’

      ‘This country has a deficit which we need to get down so the treasury has had to reduce the money available for this programme..’

      ‘Do you mean ‘reduce’ or cut completely? Is it not true that this programme has stopped completely because, in the words of your treasury man, ‘There is no money left?’

      ‘Err, errm, well yes, sort of, but as soon as they economy picks up we will crack on with it.

      ‘So if I can summarise minister. You have destroyed 2,300 houses that could have been improved at a costs of under £12,000 each to a modern standard allowing people to stay where they want, in homes they own, in their own communities. Instead you have spent a total of £100,000 on each family to allow them to live in a smaller home, where they don’t want to live, paying rent because they cannot afford to buy.

Overall you have spent £125 million to rehouse less than 1,300 families in homes that are inferior to their previous ones, leaving 1,000 families stuck in miserable temporary accommodation.

You could have spent just £28 million refurbishing those 2,300 homes, so saving the country £97 million and making a lot of families very happy. This would also have provided work for many of the local tradesmen in the area who would have spent some of their wages in the local shops.

Is that a fair summary minister?’

      ‘Err, erm, well, I, I’

      ‘Thank you minister, good luck with the next election. Don’t forget your copy of our report.

Now over to Rob Bonnet for the sport.’