Can Government policy transform the UK’s estates?

The Government recently launched its National Strategy Action Plan to reverse the decline of poor neighbourhoods. Backed by a budget of £800 million over three years, it targets 88 of the UK’s most deprived areas with the promise that ‘no one should lose out because of where they live’. How effective will this strategy be? This issue will be explored in a free Public Lecture at the University of Teesside on Wednesday 7 February, starting at 6.30pm in the Europa Building, Woodlands Road, Middlesbrough.

The Lecture, entitled ‘Still gilding the ghetto? Are there local solutions to social deprivation?’ will be delivered by Professor Tim Blackman, Director of the University’s School of Social Sciences.

Professor Blackman said: “The Government’s new policies will improve things for poor people and deprived areas. But they are going to take some time to make a difference and meanwhile the country’s affluent areas, mainly in the South-East, will probably continue to get richer.

“The new commitment to neighbourhood renewal includes some important targets about the inequalities we are prepared to tolerate in this country. For example, there is a commitment that no area should have more than a threefold difference between its burglary rate and the national average. But what differences in income and wealth are we prepared to accept, and do these differences matter?”

Professor Blackman will draw from a wide range of research about neighbourhood renewal, much of it undertaken by the School of Social Sciences at the University of Teesside. He will also draw on his own experience as a community worker, local government officer and academic working on the social problems of deprived areas in Durham, Newcastle, Belfast and Teesside.

For more information on the Lecture please contact Mark White in the Vice-Chancellor’s office on 01642 342012.

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