Table of contents

Instruments to get the private sector involved

17. What is the general approach?

Talk to the private sector actors and identify their needs and interests.

Hold open days, public-private forums, press work, school visits. These allow a mutual understanding to develop – allowing the public sector to learn more about private enterprise – and private enterprises to learn more about the neighbourhood they are in.

Create pilot projects – create closer relationships.

Create intermediary organisations (neither public nor private) that can link and built bridges.

Affirm the business community through social status awards e.g. local business per-son of the year.

18. How dowe create visions?

• Different stakeholders have different interests and visions, and the private sector may not yet have perceived its own interest in neighbourhood regeneration.
• Visioning exercises bring stakeholders together – a 'practice stage' for partnership.

19. What kind of incentives can we use?

• Incentives normally take the form of tax breaks, grants, or other financial inducements to attract private sector investment into neighbourhoods into which they would otherwise not go

20. How do you manage conflicts?

• There can be very deep divergences between different interest groups in regeneration. These are sometimes irreconcilable. If these divergences are not mediated at an early stage the success of joint working in partnership is in danger. While consensus may not be possible, try to avoid confrontation and sabotage. Conflicting aims have to be managed. Use trained professionals who are able to work both in project development (initiating new regeneration activities with local actors) and mediation (channelling the conflicts between the aims and activities of different actors into constructive channels).
• Coordinators, intermediaries or partnership-agents need sufficient competencies, tools and power to fulfil this task.

Changes that the public sector needs to make  Next