Johnson on attack as homes scheme founders

More than 100 residents living in substandard properties in Hull have been left in limbo after the coalition Government pulled the plug on the major housing regeneration project.

Gateway was expected to transform some of the most deprived areas of the city but the money has dried up nearly half-way through the 15 year scheme, leaving 143 tenants and owner occupiers, including some who literally have their bags packed to move, in turmoil.

While housebuilders are continuing to build new properties in three areas of the city, owner occupiers who were on the verge of selling their homes may now not get bought out and tenants are not being helped with the costs of moving.

Council officials said efforts were under way to find alternative funding but Labour MPs from the city warned there was little chance of success.

Mr Johnson, the Hull West and Hessle MP, said: "This is a huge blow to the regeneration of Hull. To pull the funding for a national housing programme with no transitional arrangements is economic and social vandalism on a grand scale.

"The chances of achieving the funding necessary from the Regional Growth Fund are close to zero.

"What we're seeing is the early effects of the Government's slash and burn approach to reducing the fiscal deficit."

East Hull MP Karl Turner raised Hull's predicament at Prime Minister's Question Time.

He said: "Constituents in my area who were in the closing stages of selling their properties with the scheme have been left high and dry.

"They have solicitor's fees to pay and no prospective buyers for their properties, which have now plummeted in price.

"This scheme was my predecessor's, Lord Prescott, flagship policy for regeneration in Hull.

"I questioned David Cameron regarding this issue at Prime Minister's Questions and instead of providing residents with the support and help that they need, he employed his trade mark slick PR skills to brush the issue aside.

"The Regional Growth Fund that the Government has asked councils to use instead will in no stretch of the imagination come close to covering the shortfall in funding."

One of those affected, Helen Parker who lives on the Ings Road estate, said she'd been left living "in Beirut."

The catering supervisor is a council tenant and will lose out

on around 6,000 which would have been paid to her to cover

the cost of moving and disturbance.

She said people were feeling angry, upset and stressed.

"It's like living in Beirut here. Most of the houses round here are empty, they are boarded up," she said.

"We just want answers. We want to know why. I think it stinks. They haven't thought it seriously through.

"There is a major accident here waiting to happen."

More than 30 jobs at Gateway are now also threatened.

Lib Dem council leader Carl Minn said: "There are alternative pots of money out there for these programmes and we are having very urgent talks with the Homes and Communities Agency.

"I raised the situation with Andrew Stunell (Communities Minister) last week. He acknowledged that this is an issue that the Government is aware of."

However Labour Group leader Coun Steve Brady called it an "absolute disgrace", adding: "There should have been contingency plans in place.

"They have walked into a crisis of their own making and it is the residents of Hull who will suffer because of it."

Gateway said houses currently being built on the Ings estate, Preston Road and on the site of the former Amy Johnson school would be finished – but it could not move people in as what was left of this year's funding had to be spent on satisfying legal and contractual commitments.

The current funding runs out in March.

Meanwhile all other activities were on hold, including programmes to buy up housing on Hawthorn Avenue in west

Hull and Battersea Close and Hammersmith Close on the Ings estate.

Pauline Davis, corporate director of regeneration at Hull Council, said: "We recognise that this is distressing for the residents who were expecting to move and our top priority is support them until further funding can be secured."

Project on rocks half-way through

Lord Prescott's flagship policy for regeneration in Hull involved acquiring hundreds of rundown houses in both the east and west of the city and building modern homes in their place.

Nearly half-way through the 15-year project, more than 400 homes have either been completed or on site. Gateway has acquired more than 1,000 properties including commercial premises, relocated 800 households and demolished 500 empty or sub-standard properties. It has also refurbished 1,500 Victorian and Edwardian homes. The ambitious scheme has come with a high price – by March 2011 130m of Government grants, as well as over 55m more from private and public sector sources, will have been spent. The current funding bombshell, however, makes the eventual aspiration of building 4,000 homes by 2020 look increasingly unlikely.