URCs operate by consent. We are not UDCs and have no statutory authority. We operate as dealmakers and facilitators. Central Salford has three public sector partners or shareholders, the North West Regional Development Agency, Housing and Communities Agency and of course, the City of Salford, but the URC is private sector led. In addition to being a broadcaster I have been able to build a business career when not being hi-jacked by Salford!
Central Salford URC has a £4 billion private sector investment plan and despite the current economic climate, we are still on track. When the URC was set up in 2007 we promised Government that we would deliver £500 million of private sector investment by 2020. In fact we have secured four times that amount already which is why our business plan has now been upgraded to £4 billion. We are still operating on a ratio of 1:10 but do not know what the future holds anymore than anybody else does. Currently we feel reasonably secure for this year and next in terms of public funding. Most of our deals are already in contract, there was quite flurry of activity before the election.
The Challenge
The challenge is common to any other parts of the country but particularly the North and North West. Central Salford is a community of poor quality housing, the legacy of the industrial revolution, worsened in the 60s by the indiscriminate demolition of terraces, disrupting the community, their replacement with tower blocks, a complete disaster, with the whole area completely dissected by fast roads and by railways. Salford has become a thoroughfare to serve the regional capital of Manchester, which is right on our doorstep. In fact because of the oddities of local authority boundaries we stick our nose into Manchester, we really do stick our noses out into the centre of corporate Manchester, and that is one of our biggest opportunities. The new corporate heart of Manchester, already nearly full, can only expand into Central Salford.
Although it is only a narrow space having taken possession of the alleys the people decided to transform their space by planting and to enter the Britain in Bloom competition. Most of them had never planted anything before so had to learn. They won a major award and transformed their community. Neighbours, who used to live in total isolation, now talk to one another, look after each others plants, have bought patio heaters and barbecues and are all out there, all generations, at all hours of the day and night. Here is another key message. You cannot do any of this TO people; it can only be done WITH people. We, the URC and the Council, are facilitators and helpers; we see ourselves in the role of helping not telling. We do the big infrastructure projects between communities; they do the smaller, but no less important, projects locally and we support one another.
Transformation
Transformation is what we are all about, that is what the community want, and that is what we want. Salford people are proud of where they come from, proud of the fact that they have battled through huge adversities. But nobody wants to go back to the bad old days as immortalised by
48 Felicity Goodey CBE ASSET - Liverpool-10
This is a measure of the vibrancy of our communities. The locals themselves, fed up with their back alleys being rat runs wanted some defensible space and asked the local authority to gate both ends of their alleys. We called it the “alley-gating” scheme, now becoming popular throughout the country.
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