mond2x: Renew North Staffordshire: Money well spent? (POLL)

MORE than �120 million of taxpayers' money has been spent buying up 1,696 homes and businesses earmarked for demolition across North Staffordshire's regeneration areas in just five years.

Figures obtained by The Sentinel reveal Renew North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent City Council have bought 1,661 homes and 35 business premises since April 2006.

They were bought so streets of crumbling Victorian housing could be knocked down and replaced with high-quality, modern homes.

But as Renew's seven-year �201 million Government funding runs dry on Friday there are still vast wastelands which used to be home to hundreds of residents – but now lie derelict.

Figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal Renew and the council spent �98.3 million buying homes between April 2006 and September 2010.

That includes spending around �22 million in the City Waterside area of Hanley and a further �24 million in Middleport.

A street-by-street breakdown reveals Renew and the council spent:

�5.64 million buying 88 properties in Slater Street, Middleport;

�4.87 million buying 59 properties in Bucknall New Road, Hanley;

�4.35 million buying 55 properties in Balfour Street, Hanley;

�4.15 million buying 56 properties in Wellington Road, Hanley;

�3.77 million buying 52 properties in Ludlow Street, Hanley.

The Sentinel's investigation also reveals a further �25 million has been spent buying factory sites and business premises.

Purchases included:

�3.73 million buying the former Spode Pottery, in Stoke;

�3.5 million buying Excelsior Works, in Garner Street, Cliff Vale;

�3.1 million buying Swift House, in Stoke;

�2.7 million buying Just Mugs, in Shelton.

The �201 million handed to Renew between April 2003 and March 2011 marked the single biggest capital spend in North Staffordshire's history.

Renew says it has also attracted �243 million of additional public sector cash and �404 million of private investment, to bring the total spend to �848 million.

Back in February 2004, Renew had pledged to demolish 14,000 homes and build 12,000 homes by 2024. It also planned to refurbish 10,000 privately-owned properties and 20,000 council or housing association homes.

But in its eventual seven-year life-span Renew has been behind the building of just 676 homes. An additional 3,644 houses have been built by private developers to give a grand total of 4,320 – still almost 8,000 short of the 2024 target.

At the same time Renew has demolished 2,007 houses and refurbished 7,461 homes.

In 2003, Renew was sold to residents and business owners as a "one-off" opportunity to transform a deprived city by building high-standard housing and attracting white-collar workers.

Its overall �2.3 billion vision centred around stylish canal-side living within a newly-christened City Waterside area, by pulling down hundreds of crumbling houses and increasing low house prices. But while families in streets including Eagle Street, Balfour Street, Tintern Street and Dresden Street have been forced from their homes, the area they left remains derelict with no signs of new houses.

The same problems are repeated in Middleport where the last two residents left in the Slater Street regeneration area had to be evicted just 10 days ago because they refused to leave.

And the last houses in Charter Road, Cross Heath, are only now being knocked down as the final resident has eventually left.

It leaves streets and streets of demolished homes, a city council having to fight for small pots of money and little apparent sign of developers wanting to build the houses.

Analysis of The Sentinel's data shows Renew's buying activity increased from �27.26 million in 2006/07 to a peak of �34.1 million in 2008/09.

But just �9.55 million was spent between April and September last year, because of fears over future funding.

Areas with an uncertain future include the flattened Slater Street and boarded-up Shirley Street areas of Middleport, the former Churchill China factory and surrounding streets in Cobridge, the Portland Street area of Cobridge, and most of City Waterside.

Stoke-on-Trent Central MP Tristram Hunt, pictured below, told The Sentinel Renew had set its original expectations too high.

He said "Too much was promised and not enough delivered.

"I don't think expectations were managed appropriately about what an organisation like Renew could achieve.

"There was an over-concentration on demolition and not enough on restoring the terrace houses.

"For me providing jobs is the solution to the problem.

"But for the Government to remove Renew's funding is really damaging.

"There was a total failure of communication with the residents who could not take their communities with them."

Stoke-on-Trent's first-ever Elected Mayor Mike Wolfe today labelled the Renew project as "the disappointment of the decade".

He added: "This is a massive lost opportunity. What started as a vision to build different types of housing to bring the city into the 21st century turned into a series of repair schemes on broken estates.

"Renew has destroyed far too much and built very little, and even what has been built has been low quality. People describe City Waterside as the slum of tomorrow but it's already the slum of today.

"I feel incredibly sorry for the people directly involved but everyone has been involved as this should have been a way of making the city attractive for people to remain here after graduation or for new businesses to start up."

Stoke-on-Trent North MP Joan Walley, whose constituency includes the Middleport renewal area, believes a clear masterplan should have been in place before demolition began.

She said: "I was very critical at the start of the programme because there was not a full masterplan.

"The work progressed on the basis that this was a long-term programme and something which could not happen in a short period of time.

"I am pleased the scheme later moved more towards refurbishment rather than demolition. But the tragedy is that it has ended without notice or consultation. That is the disaster."

Despite the wastelands, latest Audit Commission figures show property prices across the Renew area have increased 13 per cent since 2005. They rose from �61,000 in 2005 to a high of �76,500 in 2008 and then fell back to �69,000 in 2009.

Nigel Dickin, residential partner at estate agent Butters John Bee, said: "Renew has helped the housing market, although not necessarily the way it proposed. It created some good activity in the housing market and Stoke-on-Trent was seen as a place of positive change."

Former Renew head Hardial Bhogal, who was paid �148,229 in 2009/10, today denied money had been wasted. He says major sites are ready to be built on.

He said: "I can take you to the former Coalville estate at Weston Coyney and City Waterside and show you what we did. It's not just chit chat.

"I remember City Waterside when the old primary school was housed in the most dreadful Victorian building. The children are now in a fantastic new school and you can see a dramatic difference.

"What we have done on behalf of the city is to use extremely valuable and scarce funding to make the city ready for regeneration and growth. That's really pleasing.

"It has been invested wisely. And it's not just me saying that – it's the Audit Commission as well."

Do you believe Renew North Staffordshire has delivered on its original goals?