Last week proved to be an interesting one and this week promises to be no less so.
On October 24th, Havant Borough Council’s Cabinet approved the publication of ‘Opportunity Havant’ – A Regeneration Strategy for Havant Borough, 2018 – 2036′. For much of last week, local residents groups were meeting in huddles, active with blue pens and brimming with ‘constructive criticism’ of the work.
If you’ve not already done so, it’s worth reading the document. If you click on the link above it will open in a new browser window so you can review it alongside these notes.
Here’s our ‘boiled down’ précis of the content, section by section. “Text in quotation marks and coloured thus” is taken directly from the document, occasionally underlined by us for emphasis. “Text in quotation marks in this colour” has been paraphrased by us, the rest is our editorial comment.
INTRODUCTION
“This strategy sets out the economic case and opportunities for regeneration in Havant Borough. It highlights the key areas where direct targeted intervention will have the greatest impact and states what the Council will do over the next eighteen years to deliver regeneration – including governance, funding and resourcing.
The Delivery Plan then sets out the actions (including approvals, funding and project planning) that will be required to facilitate the delivery of phase 1 from 2018 to 2024.”
The document structure is confusing, so in the absence of heading numbers we’re grouping the rest of the document as indented below:
THE CASE FOR REGENERATION
Economic Development
“Havant Borough sits in a prosperous part of the South East of England with an affluent population/catchment and a high demand for housing. [but due to a variety of factors there has been]… a prolonged lack of investment in renewal in the Borough.”
“To break this cycle councils are beginning to realise that they will need to take a more interventionist approach. By directly driving and investing in regeneration projects councils have been able to halt or reverse decline and create conditions more attractive for private sector investment. The new political leadership at Havant Borough Council has signalled a clear ambition to drive forward the regeneration of the borough and have recognised that this will need to be adequately resourced.“
“Havant Borough Council has recognised and progressed the need for an active interventionist approach to regeneration.”
Housing Challenges
“To meet the housing challenges, the economic base of the borough is a key focus to sustain the wealth to take the area into the future.”
In other words, we’ve got to drive inward investment, push local wages up and stimulate the premium housing market while at the same time providing affordable homes for 1,800 people on the housing list.
Economic Challenges
“Havant workers are lower paid, have lower skills and a lower value of role than the average for the South East. More people commute out of the borough to work than commute into the borough to work.”
The Opportunities
“Havant Borough has a wealth of strategically and regionally important natural and economic assets that make it a prime location for investment”
A statement of the obvious which simply begs the question ‘why have we not exploited it yet?’
Key Issues & Objectives
An interesting section which, to our mind, is full of questionable ‘issues’, for example on the ‘reduction of Town Centre Retail vs Portsmouth’. Given the overall success of Solent Road and the recent cautious growth of innovative small businesses in the ‘old’ town centre, we think the authors are not in touch with current trends on Havant’s retail frontage.
THE STRATEGY
“There are five key regeneration areas in the borough:
1) Havant Town Centre (including the Civic Campus)
2) Havant Strategic Employment Sites (Brockhampton West, Langstone Technology Park & Dunsbury Park)
3) Hayling Island Seafront (West Beach, Beachlands, Eastoke, Southwood Road, Ferry Point & improved access)
4) Leigh Park Centre
5) Waterlooville Town Centre
There is a need to improve access to the focal areas on Hayling Island. This will drive visitor numbers and increase viability of attractions.”
Regeneration Programme
“A schedule of projects has been developed in the five key development areas. This list makes up the Regeneration Programme. This programme is a separate, dynamic document setting out the details of individual projects including some which are commercially sensitive. The delivery of the projects on the Regeneration Programme will be progressed in a way that is focussed on the objectives of this strategy…”
Prioritisation
PHASE 1 (2018 – 2024) Quick wins, sites entirely in HBC ownership & opportunities for income generation
PHASE 2 (2024 – 2030) More complex longer term projects
PHASE 3 (2030 – 2036) Aspirational projects that are more challenging, or where market conditions are less favourable”
The Vision
Pages 12 and 13 of the document contain the visionary statements which have had many of the local groups most exercised. There are six of them, one for each of the five key regeneration areas listed above. Wait…. six? Yes, the sixth relates to the ‘Civic Plaza Area’, conveniently listed earlier with ‘Havant Town Centre’. The reason for this appears simple, in the first five years of the Regeneration Programme, the only site where action might be visible will be somewhere on the car park of the Civic Plaza, where we might expect to see 100 new houses.
We won’t see any change in our parts of the borough before 2025.
By all means read the text in those blue boxes, but do please have the salt nearby…
Approach
Picking out a few key word and phrases:
“Interventionist “
“flexible policies that adapt to our rapidly changing society”
“Integrate regeneration into the Corporate Strategy for whole council focus”
“Borrow to Invest”
“Pump priming”
“Where necessary the Council will utilise its Compulsory Purchase Powers to bring forward schemes and will make the required budget available. This will give greater certainty over delivery of the Regeneration Programme.”
We do like that last one (it’s on Page 14).
Funding
And here it is again (repeated verbatim on Page 15) as if to reinforce the fact that they’re obviously serious about it.
“Where necessary the Council will utilise its Compulsory Purchase Powers to bring forward schemes and will make the required budget available . This will give greater certainty over delivery of the Regeneration Programme.”
Delivery
“We’ve already engaged the architects of Berewood to produce some impressive CGI visualisations of what this might look like.”
Resources
“Havant Borough Council is not a commercial developer and as such does not have the breadth of skills and depth of resource required to carry forward such an ambitious regeneration programme.”
In other words, we’re going to have a ‘resourcing challenge’.
Governance & Management
A dull heading perhaps but activities critical to the delivery of such a complex programme of work. Summarised in a few bullets and a ‘Governance Structure’ chart.
You might wonder why the ‘External Stakeholders’ box is so large and so vacant. If you do, read our response to the document.
Appendix A – Economic Evidence Base
A few tables giving the evidence behind the suggestion in the document that “Havant workers are lower paid, have lower skills and a lower value of role than the average for the South East.”
That’s it, in a nutshell. Our response will follow shortly.
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