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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Lorna Dargan
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Since the launch of the Urban Programme in 1968, area-based initiatives (ABIs) have become the principal policy instrument through which government intervenes to deliver urban regeneration. Despite their continuing evolution, however, ABIs have a demonstrably poor record in securing regeneration that is self-sustaining. Since coming to power in 1997, New Labour has attempted to reform urban regeneration, culminating in its flagship programme, the New Deal for Communities (NDC), which is hailed as a distinctively ‘new’ approach to regeneration. The thesis tests this claim by examining the rhetoric and the reality of NDC in Newcastle. The theoretical framework for the study marries discourse analysis and policy learning approaches in order, first, to establish the extent to which NDC represents a new approach and, second, to examine how NDC has transformed the practice of regeneration at the local level. The research examines whether official discourses of regeneration and participation have transformed the ways in which local actors conceptualise regeneration and participation, before exploring how these official discourses have come to structure the practice of NDC. The empirical work used qualitative research methods to examine the operation of an NDC partnership in Newcastle West Gate. The research finds that, while the official discourse of regeneration is very powerful, and has been able to structure the ways in which local actors conceptualised regeneration, it has been unable to structure the practice of NDC, which instead aims to address the inflexibilities of mainline service provision. The official discourse of participation has failed to transform both the local rhetoric and the local practice of participation. Instead two distinct local discourses of participation exist and these are locked in a destructive conflict for dominance. The result is that NDC West Gate is characterised by tension and division, and has struggled to progress the process of regeneration. While the rhetoric of NDC emphasises community-led regeneration, the reality is that the policy framework surrounding area-based regeneration is so powerful that local actors have not sought to implement their own vision for regeneration. Furthermore, the consequences of giving local actors the freedom to participate as they choose has exposed the flaws inherent in the NDC process, which includes what the thesis terms a ‘naïve sociology of community’. Far from representing a new approach to regeneration, NDC risks replicating the failings of previous ABIs, unless Government re-evaluates the purpose of regeneration, and the means through which it is delivered.
Author(s): Dargan L
Publication type: Authored Book
Publication status: Published
Year: 2002
Number of Pages: 355
Publisher: Department of Geography, University of Newcastle
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
