The Daddy of Urban Regeneration. The brightest government minister of the past 40 years. And a Freeman of the City of Liverpool. These are just a handful of the titles bestowed upon Lord Heseltine in recent years.
At last night’s MIPIM UK/Estates Gazette Awards, the former deputy prime minister added a further honour, becoming the first recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Urban Regeneration. It is richly deserved.
Cast your mind back to 1981. That summer saw devastating riots in Brixton, Manchester, Toxteth in Liverpool and beyond. The secretary of state for the environment, then known merely as Michael Heseltine, pressed Margaret Thatcher for two to three weeks away from day-to-day departmental responsibilities to concentrate on Merseyside.
After that pioneering, fact-finding expedition, the result was It Took a Riot, a paper that demanded a policy focus on the regions, a harnessing of private sector support and the directing of resources to job creation. He was unable to persuade the prime minister to adopt his six-part strategy then, but it remains something of a regeneration blueprint to this day.
Lord Heseltine spent a year and a half as “minister for Merseyside”, a commitment that saw him given an honorary fellowship in 2013 by Liverpool John Moores University in recognition of the part he played in the city’s regeneration. Presenting the award, pro vice-chancellor Dr Edward Harcourt said: “As environment secretary, it was his foresight, influence and lobbying in national, political and financial circles that created the partnerships to invest in the regeneration of the Albert Dock, stage the 1984 International Garden Festival and commence a 25-year programme to clean up the River Mersey.”
A year earlier he had been made a freeman of the city, prompting him to say recently: “One of the most emotional moments of my life was when the Labour leader – and he’s got 69 Labour councillors – said: ‘We want to give you the freedom of the city.’ I have to say, tears welled up in my eyes.”
Launched last year, the University of Liverpool’s Heseltine Institute of Public Policy and Practice further binds him to the city.
But just as his commitment to regeneration reaches far beyond Liverpool – and began before the riots of 1981 – his work has continued since. From City Challenge to urban development corporations, the most significant urban initiatives of the past four decades have either been of his creation or have been made more significant by his participation.
And seldom has his contribution been more keenly felt than in this parliament.
In 2012 he delivered another seminal report, No Stone Unturned: In Pursuit of Growth. The government backed what was a comprehensive economic plan to improve the UK’s ability to create wealth. It accepted in full or in part 81 of his 89 recommendations, though it did not make available the sums Lord Heseltine recommended.
Nevertheless working with cities minister Greg Clark, he has helped to deliver the local growth programme and the £6bn of local growth deals. He has worked most closely with Birmingham this time around, though his support has again been national. And he is not content to rest there in delivering on his ambition to devolve further power and financial control to a local level.
He told Estates Gazette last year: “We are on the cusp of restoring power to where it was when this country became the great figure it was in world events.” The current devolution debate may have been thrust into the public consciousness by the Scottish referendum, but it has never been far from Lord Heseltine’s mind.
Tireless, restless and still making trouble at the age of 81, Lord Heseltine is a rarity in British politics. He is active within government while winning respect across the political divide. And in an era where rhetoric too often overshadows action, for over 50 years in Westminster and Whitehall, he has quite simply Got Things Done.
He is a most deserving winner of our Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Urban Regeneration.
