The Housing Corporation will in future concentrate on building low-rent housing in areas where there is likely to be continued demand and where other agencies are investing in regeneration.
This will replace the existing strategy of spreading investment thinly. It follows revelations that whole streets of private and public sector houses are being abandoned or demolished because of a collapse in values in deprived parts of cities in the north of England. These include primarily places such as Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle. Others to have been affected are Barrow, Stoke and Blackburn. Parts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are said to have problems with milder symptoms in the Midlands and some southern coastal towns.
The Housing Corporation suggests it is the closure of industries and depopulation of inner cities over 30 years that has caused the problem. Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield are demolishing thousands of council houses.
Financial Times 24/06/99 page 24
