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£150m boost for housing renewal

7:52pm Thursday 28th February 2008

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Photograph of the Author By Tom Moseley »

REGENERATION bosses promised to revamp East Lancashire homes after earning a £150million Government grant.

The cash will be given to Elevate, the company behind the Housing Market Renewal scheme, over the next three years, taking its total funding since 2003 to £317million.

Elevate chief executive Max Steinberg said he was "delighted" with the outcome.

The award, the highest ever given to Elevate, is the second-largest of the nine areas in England in the Housing Market Renewal programme.

Mr Steinberg said: "We prepared a very strong business case and clearly we have been listened to."

He said one of the reasons East Lancashire had fared so well was the co-operation between different councils.

The Government had recog-nised East Lancashire's housing market needed investment, he added.

Elevate had lobbied the Government for a total of £156 million.

It is not known how much the other eight areas had asked for cash from the £1 billion pot.

The Merseyside New Heartlands scheme will get £152million, the Salford scheme will receive £140million and Oldham Rochdale Partners in Action £90million.

Under Housing Market Renewal, houses are refurbished or knocked down to make way for redevelopment in an attempt to improve the housing market.

Elevate has been criticised for not building enough houses and concentrating on demolition.

Mr Steinberg said it was too early to be specific on the number of houses to be built, but said money would be ploughed into existing refurbishment sites in Darwen, Blackburn Infirmary, and Pendle's Canal Corridor.

And projects will start at Woodnook in Accrington and Burnley Wood.

The money will be divided up between councils, which have already submitted separate bids to Elevate.

In the coming year Blackburn with Darwen will be given £12.6 million, Burnley £14.4 million, Hyndburn £8.6 million, Pendle £10.6 million and Rossendale £2.6 million.

Blackburn council leader Colin Rigby said: "That's the amount we were looking for, and Max has done his job in getting it.

"We need it - we still need more, but we've got to be grateful.

"This is good news for the borough, now we have to sit down and make the best use of it."

Your Say YourTelegraph

image, burnley says...
11:27pm Thu 6 Mar 08

IMRAN wrote:
Totally agree with Dusty. Elevate just get paid a load of money for actually not doing much. I am a resident of one of the areas that has recently received Elevate Funding and the amount of money being claimed for the external improvements for each house on Lomeshaye Road was in the region of £35000.00, all this included was a sandblast, replacement windows, reslate, new guttering and fancy railings, I have friends in the trade who work on large developments for Bovis, Barratt etc and they informed me that the monies involved in improving these properties is way overboard. On top of that the quality of the work and the material used is second rate, the majority of all the doors have actually split INSIDE 6 MONTHS! Someone is getting conned!!!
the best thing is you can post a little bit about it on here but try writing to the actual paper to get them to investigate or even print your letter hahahah all they do is ring their brownnose mates in the council and they say don't believe them and hey presto everything is back to normal.the worst papers in the world are the telegraph and the express .

IMRAN, Pendle says...
9:41pm Wed 5 Mar 08

Totally agree with Dusty. Elevate just get paid a load of money for actually not doing much. I am a resident of one of the areas that has recently received Elevate Funding and the amount of money being claimed for the external improvements for each house on Lomeshaye Road was in the region of £35000.00, all this included was a sandblast, replacement windows, reslate, new guttering and fancy railings, I have friends in the trade who work on large developments for Bovis, Barratt etc and they informed me that the monies involved in improving these properties is way overboard. On top of that the quality of the work and the material used is second rate, the majority of all the doors have actually split INSIDE 6 MONTHS!

Someone is getting conned!!!

dawn hilton, www.thesexyartist.co .uk says...
1:29am Wed 5 Mar 08

Well did I read some where that Lancashire folk are about to have 190,000 homes reposessed the other day?

Guess all these homes are for those people?

Doubt it, only 10% of any new development goes to rentable housing.

If you look at my website, you can see Accrington getting develop[ed ready for the "YUPPIES" FROM MANCHESTER OVERSPILL
.

dusty, hyndburn says...
1:47pm Tue 4 Mar 08

I can assure you the comments made by parolee are rubbish. I've worked on these group repair / facelift schemes at hands on level and they arent carried out by exprosoners and day release people, they're done by reputable contractors.
Me, The Burn on is right, the whole idea was to give local contractors work and it's not happened. Most of the contractors being used are large multi-national companies!!
MIKEOXLONG is talking crap. Most of the properties I've worked on recently have been decent hardworking people, or retired folk who've done their best to maintain their properties. But when a re-slate can cost £4k+, it's beyond most people's pockets. Get real muppet. I work and earn a decent wage but I cant afford all the stuff that needs going to my house.
As for elevate - what a shower of crap. Get rid of them and their fat cat salaries and there'll be more money to spend in the boroughs - they're more interested in moving offices, inventing jobs and procedures - all costing pheominal amounts of money. As for £10.6m for pendle, I'll believe it when I see it - the figures & article are misleading beyond belief. Trust me I've seen it first hand since the day elevate began.

Andy Mullen, Athens, Greece. says...
8:56pm Sun 2 Mar 08

Under the photo, it reads: "DELIGHTED: Elevate chief executive Max Steinberg."
Have you got a photo of him depressed?

MIKEOXLONG, says...
1:54pm Sun 2 Mar 08

What a good idea that is! spend 150 million on refurbing housing occupied by scum who dont know how to look after and respect the house they occupy. Hows about this for an idea, get off your fat arses go find a job to earn money to do the repairs to your house yourself instead of relying on somebody else to sort your life out for you. education, police, prisons, NHS these are just to name a few areas where the money WILL be much better spent rather than ploughing it into areas to which it will make no difference at all. At the end of the day no matter how hard you try you just cannot polish a turd

Nigel St. Hubbins, Darwen says...
1:47pm Sat 1 Mar 08

Elevate has been criticised for not building enough houses and concentrating on demolition.


That should read ANY , all they seem to do is knock the houses down and leave wasteland for the kids to play and get injured on. Absolute waste of time.

parolee, here says...
2:33pm Fri 29 Feb 08

bob wrote:
julia wrote: your house will be next.
Good news. I look forward to having the money spent on my house soon - the block repairs already carried out in Darwen are great.
you must be stupid i have worked on these so called tarting up jobs on the way into towns .It's all bogded and exprosoners and day release people doing it .The ytake the **** they have even pointed walls with just sand lol all cosmetic crap give it 2/3 years and all they did will peel of and need doing again lol

Me, The Burn says...
12:55pm Fri 29 Feb 08

My big question is will any of this work be allocated to the smaller construction companies in the area as the whole whooo haar in the beginning was to create work for local companies... As far as Im concerned this is aload of bull, through experience the projects have been awarded to companies who have been taken over by the fat cat companies.. And where are there main offices based?? London?? Oh yeh keeping our money in the local pot, I think not!!!!

bob, darwen says...
11:47pm Thu 28 Feb 08

julia wrote:
your house will be next.
Good news. I look forward to having the money spent on my house soon - the block repairs already carried out in Darwen are great.

julia, Blackburn says...
10:04pm Thu 28 Feb 08

your house will be next.

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DELIGHTED: Elevate chief executive Max Steinberg DELIGHTED: Elevate chief executive Max Steinberg

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