The RICS has lashed out at the Government for failing to challenge EU rules on gap funding for urban regeneration.
Speaking to MPs this morning, RICS Regeneration Policy Panel chairman Nigel Smith said that the EU’s rules on gap funding meant that “our towns and cities are left in limbo”.
Smith was addressing the Urban Affairs Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government & the Regions, which was meeting to discuss “The need for a New European Regeneration Framework”.
In 1999, the European Commission ruled that using public money to bridge the gap between the costs of development and the end value of a site (gap funding) broke strict EU competition rules.
Smith told the sub-committee that the “interim arrangements that have been put in place are late, under-publicised and an inadequate long term solution”.
The blame, according to Smith, lies with the DTLR. He said: “The regeneration of our most rundown areas is not something that should be subject to EU competition rules.
“The DTLR has not handled this at all well from the outset and they don’t seem to have learned from the roasting they got at the hands of the previous select committee during its investigation into the original decision from Europe.”
He added: “This issue should be given much higher priority in Government, right up to the level of Stephen Byers as Secretary of State.
“It would be pushing at an open door in Europe, but nothing seems to be happening.”
EGi News 05/03/02
