An independent report by members of the Urban Task Force chaired by Lord Rogers
November 2005

The Urban Renaissance six years on

In 1998 the Deputy Prime Minister invited Richard Rogers to set up the Urban Task Force to identify causes of urban decline and establish a vision for our cities, founded on the principles of design excellence, social wellbeing and environmental responsibility within appropriate delivery, fiscal and legal frameworks. Many of the 105 recommendations have been addressed by the Government, shaping much of current and future national policy on England’s towns and cities. In the original Urban Task Force Report, Richard set out a vision: a vision of well designed, compact and connected cities supporting a diverse range of uses - where people live, work and enjoy leisure time at close quarters - in a sustainable urban environment well integrated with public transport and adaptable to change. Six years on, and with a third successive Labour Government in place, there are some notable successes:
 

• For the first time in 50 years there has been a measurable change of culture in favour of towns and cities, reflecting a nationwide commitment to the Urban Renaissance. People have started to move back into city centres: in 1990 there were 90 people living in the heart of Manchester, today there are 25,000 residents; over the same period the population of central Liverpool has increased fourfold.
  
• By adhering to the principle of sequential testing, re-use of brownfield land instead of building houses on greenfield sites has been encouraged. Today, a national average of 70% of new development is on brownfield land, compared with 56% in 1997.
  
• Building densities have increased, from an average of 25 dwellings per hectare in 1997 to 40 dwellings per hectare in 2005, making better use of our land and resources.
  
• The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment is now an established champion of design quality; the Academy for Sustainable Communities and the regional centres have been launched to address the skills deficit.
  
• Local authority performance is on an upward trend. The Audit Commission’s Comprehensive Performance Assessment of local authorities across the country has found the vast majority to be ‘good’ through to ‘excellent’.
  
• There has been some progress to reduce the environmental impact of new buildings with a new and welcome code of sustainable building.
  
• There has been a significant increase in investment in public transport infrastructure, with greater attention given to the needs of pedestrians and sustainable transport.
  
• Private investment has been levered into the cities. Since 1996, £2 billion of private sector investment has flowed into the Manchester city region alone.
  
• £39 billion has been allocated over the next five years to deliver the Sustainable Communities Plan across England.
  
• Cities and regions have greater powers to control their destiny. Thanks to these measures, and a period of sustained economic growth and stability, England’s cities are very different places from the post-industrial centres of unemployment and failing public services of twenty years ago. English cities have established themselves as powerhouses in the UK economy and centres for cultural innovation. They stand more confidently on the international stage.
   

This progress is cause for celebration, but not evidence that the job is done. New issues have emerged, and old issues remain, which require renewed attention from Government.
 

• Failure to keep up with the challenge of climate change threatens enduring environmental degradation.
  
• Middle class families are moving out of towns and cities in search of better schools, less congestion and a safer environment. In 2001, only 28% of people in inner London were aged 45 or older, compared with 40% across the UK as a whole.
• Massive inequalities persist in our cities. Competition for space pushes up prices for housing, making access for lower income households much harder.
  
• Social housing supply is too low. The Barker Report estimated that an extra £1.2bn is required each year to subsidise 17,000 additional social housing units.
  
• Growing housing demand is a big challenge. How can we build compact, well-designed, sustainable neighbourhoods which make best use of brownfield sites, are well served by public transport, hospitals, schools and other amenities, and do not weaken existing urban areas?
  
• Opportunities to create sustainable, environmentally friendly communities are being missed because transport provision and funding is still too dislocated from the overall planning process.
  
• Few well-designed integrated urban projects stand out as international exemplars of sustainable communities, despite public investment in new housing.
  
• Design quality is not a central objective for public bodies with responsibility for the built environment. These often lack design input at board or cabinet level.
  
• The confusing sponsorship and funding arrangements of the Regional Development Agencies - through which they are 85% funded by ODPM but sponsored by the DTI - have led them to focus on economic development, jobs and growth rather than high quality, well-designed, sustainable urban development.
  
• Design advice to Ministers, Mayors, local authority leaders and cabinets is still too limited.
  
• The plethora of overlapping, but differently funded and monitored, regeneration bodies has reduced the effectiveness of public sector led regeneration schemes. Sustainable regeneration of large complex areas (e.g. Thames Gateway) suffers from fragmented decisionmaking processes and institutions which lack coherent area-based delivery mechanisms.
  
• Whilst focusing on sustainable communities, we have weakened our stance on urban regeneration. To solve the problems facing society today and to build on successes to date we have to learn from the experience of the past six years, reflect honestly on what has worked and where problems remain, and take decisions now to ensure the mechanisms to deliver an urban renaissance are fit to meet the exacting demands of the vision.
  

That is why Richard asked his colleagues from the Urban Task Force to collaborate in writing this short report. It is not a comprehensive update of "Towards an Urban Renaissance", the final report of the Urban Task Force in 1999. Rather, it is an independent report based on the personal experience of Urban Task Force members on the ground, designed to stimulate public debate and encourage new thinking. Richard hopes this work will help realise the widely shared vision of a lasting Urban Renaissance in England.