On 27 November 2000 a 10-year-old boy was killed, probably by his peers, in the middle of one the biggest regeneration projects in Great Britain. Politicians and reporters spent the end of the year falling over each other to explain why such a crime could have occurred. What has happened to young people? Where are parents, schools, local authorities and the police going wrong? Why was he killed in an area where so many millions have been spent on improvements – is all urban renewal inevitably doomed to failure?

The North Peckham Estate, where Damilola Taylor died, has long been synonymous with failure and several attempts have been made to ‘put it right’ over the last 30 years. The latest is a £260 million, seven-year, Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) programme, now in its penultimate year. So far, 2,536 homes have been demolished, over 6,000 people have been moved out, and 1,223 new homes have been built. The impact of such a massive project is tremendous. For the children who live here, the last five years have meant disruption in every area of their lives.

The SRB programme will spend at least £260 million over its seven years. £208 million will be spent on housing; £12 million on education; and £16 million on health.[footnote 1] The remaining £24 million will be split between town-centre improvements, employment initiatives and crime prevention. Whichever way you look at the figures, very little money is available for the rebuilding of a community inevitably torn apart by wholesale ‘decanting’ of residents and even less is ear-marked to help people cope with the trauma of living on a building site. Yet the impact of redevelopment on health and well-being is well-documented.[footnote 2]

Tenants asked, from the very start of this project, for particular attention to be paid to the needs of children living in an area of regeneration, for proper recognition of the impact of not just living, but learning and playing, on a demolition site – routes to school are constantly having to change because a walkway stops in mid-air or a road is being dug up and playgrounds, nurseries and youth clubs have been demolished before the plans for replacements are even drawn up. Eighteen months before the programme is due to be completed there are still no facilities specifically aimed at the 7-14 age group. Local schools have suffered from constantly changing pupils and class sizes, and high teacher turn-over. Until the programme of regeneration is over it is almost impossible to plan accurately for short and long-term improvement.

The two large state primary schools in the area additionally face a constant stream of children who are only living in the area temporarily because they are from refugee communities or homeless families who have been granted short-term lets in flats that have already been emptied for demolition. The flats these vulnerable, excluded children live in are not adequately maintained because they will be demolished within 12 months, the lighting is inadequate because at least half the flats are empty, the rubbish is not cleared properly because estate roads are too difficult for refuse trucks to navigate, rats and other pests abound because so many flats are void but full of rubbish, the dark, empty stairwells are meeting places for drug deals, broken empty flats are used as shooting galleries. But the local authority has insufficient housing to put people elsewhere and so much demolition inevitably leads to loss of revenue, since short-term lets make financial sense.

Successive governments, local authorities and town planners have underestimated the impact on a community of massive regeneration projects. Too few resources are allocated to community development and to help children and young people deal with the regeneration process.

Money for some small projects working with young people has been available in Peckham – as part of crime prevention – the total funding for that objective is, however, £1.5 million, which includes some expensive CCTV. Instead of being seen as people to be cherished, the citizens of the future, young people have been sold short and criminalised.

The SRB programme has demolished nine community spaces. Although four new spaces have been built, only one is easily available for general community use. One other community centre has not been demolished, but improved, and remains available, particularly as a resource for the Black community - in an area where 69 per cent of the population identify themselves as being from an ethnic minority, it is constantly booked up. Hundreds of people, young adults, parents, grandparents are struggling to run after-school clubs, Saturday schools, education projects, football and basketball clubs, art workshops, dance classes, even just trying to hold big community parties to celebrate births, marriages, birthdays, not only because of financial difficulties but because of the lack of reasonably priced halls and rooms to rent. A Mori poll of the area found that 33 per cent of the population were aged under 16; long-term unemployment is a serious problem and average household income is £221 per week (£151 for lone-parent families)[footnote 3] – could nobody with influence see that one centre would not be enough?

On paper, urban renewal looks great, but real change, true regeneration, is never about architects’ drawings, local authority spending targets or government crime figures. It is about the people who live in a place changing things for themselves and for each other. Yes, Peckham and all the other run-down mistakes of urban planning currently being ‘regenerated’ throughout Britain will be better places to live in the end, but if the physical part takes seven years and the rebuilding of a community perhaps twice that, how many children will have been lost? How many children will have done all their growing-up surrounded by insecurity, demolition hoardings and brick dust?

Pascale Vassie has lived and worked in Peckham since 1987, when she moved into a flat on the Sumner Estate through the GLC hard-to-let scheme. From 1995 to 1998 she was a tenant representative on the Peckham Partnership Board.

Footnotes
1. Peckham Patnership Annual Report 95/96 [back to text]
2. K. Pollard, Housing and Health – Assessing the impact of redevelopment on the health status of Liddle ward, July 1997 [back to text]
3. Peckham Partnership Mid Term Review, General Data: MORI Household Survey Key Findings, May 1998 [back to text]

Poverty 108, Winter 2001