Estate-based regeneration in England: Lessons from Housing Action Trusts

This paper presents an interim assessment of Housing Action Trusts (HATs)-s pecial purpose, limited duration, Government agencies-charged with the task of comprehensively regenerating run-down housing estates in England. HATs' track record remains under-analysed despite the large sums of public money involved and their relevance to the latest experiments in estate regenerat ion. The paper briefly profiles the six HATs' designated areas, then assess es the degree to which they have achieved their main objectives. HATs have thus far had mixed success. They have attached greater priority to employme nt and training and quality of life measures, community empowerment and sus tainability than earlier estate regeneration programmes. However, they have still devoted the lion's share of their resources to housing investment an d the question remains whether they have gone far enough in tackling the de ep-roofed social and economic problems of deprived neighbourhoods. HATs hav e proved relatively expensive compared with alternative methods of injectin g new investment into social housing, largely because of their emphasis upo n durable design, good space standards and energy efficiency and also resid ent empowerment and wider measures. Only time will tell whether the extra c ost is justified.