Table of contents

On definitions and strategic goals (2)

6. Why should public sector agencies want to get the private sector involved?

There are four key reasons that have emerged from the ENTRUST study:

• As key stakeholders in the neighbourhood, the private sector actors’ contri-bution and are valuable. By involving them, we get a better understanding of what they see as problems and possible solutions. The regeneration process is therefore not just focused on the needs of the residents, but widened to include those who live, work and play there.

  • To ensure better long term sustainability by using all resources to the best of their potential and including them in any benefits from the regeneration.
  • To take advantage of their skills and expertise, including their predisposi-tion to action.
  • To replace public sector funding or to obtain leverage from public funds.

The box below sets out the reasons given by some of the ENTRUST cities:

• The approach taken by the ENTRUST cities to commercial businesses was four-fold:
  • Encourage existing local companies to grow and develop by providing employment assistance (including job selection and training). Examples of this were found in Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Glasgow, and Hamburg.
  • Provide ‘start-up’ facilities for new businesses often in workspaces either purpose built or converted buildings. One way of re-using buildings that have lost their original purpose is to convert them to business centres or workspaces. This was demonstrated in almost every city – artists using surplus shops (Berlin); railway arches converted to workspaces (Glasgow); ex meat factory to start up offices (Hamburg); Digital Hub (Dublin); ex light factory to workspaces (Vilnius); church to stock exchange (Malta).
  • Attract established businesses to the neighbourhood for example, Nokia and other international companies in Copenhagen; Hotel chain in Glasgow. These might require some financial inducement – e.g. direct subsidy or brownfield land prepared for development and the costs absorbed by the public purse.
  • Take advantage of construction being undertaken in the neighbourhood as an opportunity for job creation and training for local people, provided that some arrangement is made in contracts (e.g. developers building housing in Glasgow.

7. Is the private sector involvement also about local economic development?

• Neighbourhoods requiring regeneration have multi-faceted challenges – social, economic and environmental. The residents of ENTRUST neighbourhoods have lower in-comes, lower educational levels, poorer health, fewer opportunities, and suffer higher levels of environmental pollution than residents in other cities. A renovated dwelling does not give you a job; a renewed shopping street does not automatically establish new shops and commercial life. A key objective of regeneration programmes is to improve the quality of life for the existing residents. Some of the important issues therefore are:
  – the creation of quality employment
  – improving skills and access to employment
  – increasing incomes

• We therefore need to integrate a broad spectrum of partners and to tackle all the different issues in a neighbourhood, and create a shift of perspective from solely physical renewal (housing etc.) to cross-sectoral strategies which also include socio-economic aims (employment, social inclusion etc.)

8. Could the public sector leave the strategic driving to the private sector?

• This is partly an issue of accountability. The public sector is democratically accountable – either through local elections or as agents of a level of govern-ment.

• The public sector has the overall responsibility to ensure that the interests of all the stakeholders are represented – this is difficult for the commercial sector since their motivation (unless acting as agents of the public sector) does not cover all the stakeholders.

• Therefore it is only possible for the private sector to take a strategic lead where there are few stakeholders and the involvement of pre-existing local communities is not necessary (e.g. in some case of regenerating brownfield land such as dock-lands).

9. When do we get the private sector involved?

• As with any stakeholder, the earlier their involvement the greater their level of in-volvement and the greater the benefits that can be obtained both for the neigh-bourhood and for the individual stakeholder.
• Only by getting private sector actors involved at an early stage can you get them to formulate their needs and wishes – and without knowing their needs and wishes you cannot deliver on them.