UK summit meeting on Sustainable Communities

John Prescot was the key speaker at 'Creating Sustainable Communities' summit

At the end of this month, delegates will be arriving in Manchester for the opening on 2005-02-01 of the United Kingdom Government's summit conference on Creating Sustainable Communities.

Key speakers will be John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, whose ODPM department is the driving force behind the regionalisation of housing and planning and the concept of sustainable communities, and Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

As it gets into its stride, this regeneration programme will generate huge demands upon the construction industry for affordable housing, renovation work and development of the infrastructure.

As it happens, an excellent example of how the ideal of creating sustainable communities might work has been presented by the National Audit Office in its recent report on the complex negotiations surrounding the English Partnerships project for completing the development of the Greenwich Peninsula site in the Thames Gateway, and finding new uses for the Millennium Dome.

One of the keys to success here will be the funding of new infrastructure by means of planning agreements that place resources equal to £100 million at the outset in the hands of the local authorities.

Agreements of this kind may turn out to be one way in which the Government intends to fund the exceptional demands of its ambitious plans for building sustainable communities.

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