'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results' Albert Einstein

Pathfinder is the name given to the embodiment of a series of policies aimed at preventing housing market collapse in nine urban areas around England, otherwise known as the Housing Market Renewal Initiative (HMRI). It represents a massive investment of public money in the future of these areas over 15 years (up to £500million in each area). It is a huge opportunity for the heritage of these areas, but conversely it is shaping up to be a complete disaster.
Consequently, while SAVE Britain’s Heritage supports the basic premise of the policy – namely supporting the market and improving housing conditions - its execution earns our strongest condemnation. SAVE recently gave evidence to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) Committee – the committee of Parliamentarians that monitors the activities of John Prescott’s mega-department – alongside local protestors on huge damage the policy in its current form will cause to our heritage and the communities that live in and amongst it. We eagerly await the Committee’s report, which Government will be hard pressed to ignore.
Up to 400,000 houses, mostly pre-1919 terraces, are threatened with clearance through the policy. At current rates, 168,000 will be demolished, but there are calls from the academics behind the policy for the demolition rates to be speeded up. This has been echoed in Government policy. The policy does include a degree of refurbishment but in no way does this ameliorate the effects (in terms of heritage, society and sustainability) of mass demolitions. www.thenorthernway.co.uk

These are emphatically not slum dwellings. In some of the areas there are serious social, health and education problems, but to blame this on the buildings is simplistic is blaming the frequently very low housing values in these areas on the quality of the historic building stock. These are potentially sustainable communities – they need state support, not state abandonment.

Mass demolition is the easiest option for dealing with the perceived problem of market failure and the real social problems, yet the lessons of the past have proven that the “quick wins” it provides are followed long term problems.

The Pathfinder areas are:

North Staffordshire
Birmingham and Sandwell
Merseyside(Liverpool,Sefton,Wirral)
ManchesterandSalford
East Lancashire (Blackburn, Hyndburn, Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale)NewcastleandGateshead
Humberside (Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire)
OldhamandRochdale
South Yorkshire(Sheffield,Barnsley,RotherhamandDoncaster)

The loss to the heritage

The majority of 400,000 buildings threatened by Pathfinder and the Housing Market Renewal Initiative are pre-1919 terraced houses. Part of the justification for this in Government policy, as laid down in “The Northern Way” is that the economic development of the North is dependent on variety in the housing stock. Terraced housing is the dominant form of housing across the UK and so Pathfinder is targeting it for clearance. This is in spite of the fact that there has been no national study of the terraced house: our understanding of the variety of residential units it provides, of its evolution and history, is minimal. An in-depth study such as this would be a great challenge for a small organisation like SAVE, but perhaps English Heritage, which helped fight off the threat of mass clearance in Nelson, Lancashire, has the necessary expertise and funding (well, at least it didbefore the recent cuts).

The variety and quality of the buildings and areas threatened with demolition is astonishing. Entire areas of four or five bedroomed houses in Liverpool area up for demolition, such as around Anfield. An area of Bootle, ten minutes walk from the lively town centre with its Marks and Spencers is up for clearance. Solid stone built terraces in Darwen face clearance and Northwood in Stoke on Trent, an area that summarises all that is best about these areas, a model sustainable community, faces clearance. These should be conservation areas, but conservation areas are declared by the self-same local authorities that are working towards clearance.

This is obviously not the heritage of the elite, it is the heritage of everyday, normal people. Government policy on heritage discusses at length the importance of the sense of place created by the historic environment, yet this sense of place and history, to which local people can relate, stands to be lost. Once gone, like the buildings, it is gone forever and cannot be replaced.

Pathfinder’s focus solely on houses fails to take in to account the wider urban fabric. Terraced housing does not exist in isolation, but in relation to the industrial buildings and history of the area, and is supported by pubs and shops of similar dates. A broader approach to these areas is needed, understanding the potential of the fabric to provide spaces for living, recreation and employment without having to resort to demolition.

Social dislocation and a lack of consultation

“Our guiding principle is that people must come first”John Prescott

Like the buildings, the social capital built up in these areas once lost cannot be replaced. In some of the threatened areas (in our experience, the minority) there are only the remnants of a community bravely holding out against the bulldozers, but in most there are settle communities happy in their houses in which they have invested money, time and pride.

Waking up one morning to find a letter on your doormat from the local authority stating that it is going to compulsorily purchase your house and knock it down must rate as one of the more traumatic moments in life. This is precisely what is happening to thousands in Pathfinder areas, casting a pall of doubt over their lives.

Local authorities and Pathfinder bodies are meant to consult widely before working up proposals. However, this is practically impossible as the numbers of buildings that are to be demolished are decided before locals are consulted as part of the strategic approach to the perceived problem. What then happens is that the inhabitants of a clearance area are consulted on the future of their area without being given the full details of what is proposed, on top of which they are consulted in planner-doublespeak. In effect they are given the option of demolition or…. demolition. This, like much of the policy, is simply Orwellian. People are offered other places to live, but this inevitably means having to move somewhere more expensive. We have encountered retired people being offered mortgages to help purchase their new places. This is morally reprehensible.

The Flawed Evidence Base

When questioning whether all this destruction is necessary, one naturally looks to the evidence base, firstly at the academic research that forms the basis for the policy, and secondly at the reasons given for the choice of clearance areas.

Much of the academic research that underpins the policy was carried out by the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham. At the time of execution the research and its results were entirely relevant. However, in many cases the evidence is now half a decade old. The housing market has moved on significantly in this time, but Pathfinder does not seem to have the flexibility to acknowledge this. The CPRE’s excellent report “Useless Old Houses?” looked at market conditions and requirements in Pathfinder areas and found that the problem was not one of housing obsolesence but one of the image of the wider areas, connected to local authority services, social problems and so forth.

The question of market collapse is particularly relevant in Merseyside where 20,000 houses are threatened with demolition. The local authorities and registered social landlords (who were encouraged to take over the housing stock from the local authorities in the darker days of the 1980s) have a stranglehold on the market in the clearance areas: the market simply doesn’t exist. They have decanted people from the areas and “tinned up” (to use local parlance) the houses, thereby blighting the areas and driving down housing values for the few remaining privately owned houses. There are currently over 20,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in Liverpool.

So while there are flaws in the evidence base at this high level, on the ground there are serious problems with the evidence used to justify the demolition of the houses. The case of Darwen in the East Lancashire Pathfinder area sums this up neatly. In order to declare a clearance area, the local authority had to show that the majority of houses (all dating from the 1860s) in the area are unfit. This it did through ten minute external condition surveys with a series of boxes for the surveyors (qualifications unknown) to tick. A small majority were found to be unfit. A sample of 15 of these allegedly unfit houses (of a grand total of 150 houses in the clearance area) were looked at in depth by an independent surveyor with great experience of working with historic buildings and terraced housing. He was commissioned by the local residents group and a journalist working for the Sunday Times who was working on the article that finally blew the lid on Pathfinder. All 15 were extensively surveyed, in an out, and found to be in fair to good condition. This is redolent of the clearances of the 1960s and 70s, when in London’s East End, for example, SAVE unearthed the fact that 60-75% of the 80,000 houses demolished were in fair to good condition and could have been rehabilitated. Lord Rooker’s statement to the ODPM Committee that “we do not want to destroy good properties that are well built” makes it looks as if the policy is beyond Minister’s control.

This pattern is repeated across Pathfinder areas – we understand that the reason for the possible demolition of Northwood in Stoke-on-Trent is bad ground conditions – yet the buildings show no signs of active movement. What is perhaps remarkable here is that Stoke-on-Trent probably has more potential in terms of brownfield development sites than any other city in the UK, yet there is in Pathfinder the desire to create more. This is another objectional aspect of Pathfinder – the creation of brownfield sites through demolition in order to meet Government strictures about the percentage of new development of brownfield sites.

The Alternatives to Demolition

What is all too easily forgotten in the headlong rush for demolition is that people want to live in these areas. There are alternatives to demolition which retain the historic fabric and do not unnecessarily waste the massive amounts of energy embodied in these houses.

Most widely know in the architectural community are the proposals by Urban Splash to knock two in to one to create very modern living spaces and attract wealthier people to these areas. This is only one possible approach of many, but contains the necessary ingredients of imagination and wit to ensure the end product is just the ticket. The real pioneers of this approach, at a rather more affordable level, are the Asian communities where the desire to keep the extended family nearby can be met by knocking two houses together. The Heritage Trust for the North-West has shown how a single terraced house can be economically adapted and brought up to modern standards and expectations while respecting the historic fabric – in spite of the punitive addition of 17.5% to the costs through the obscene VAT regime. Other solutions – block repair, confidence building, homezones, repair grants, living over the shops and so on are there to be tried and tested.

The key is to work with rather than against the urban fabric, where necessary knitting new build in with the weave of the old rather than destroying this remarkable legacy. For every pound invested in Pathfinder areas by Government, it is hoped that the private sector – social landlords and the more powerful developers, will invest £4. Community, innovation and respect for history have not traditionally been their watchwords.
Pathfinder needs to plot its route by looking at the mistakes of the past and learning from them rather than careering on blindly into mindless clearance.