Black Country Telford Housing Market Renewal Area - Phase One

Transcription

1 Black Country Telford Housing Market Renewal Area - Phase One A Final Report to Wolverhampton City Council (on behalf of the HMRA Partnership) ECOTEC Research & Consulting Limited Priestley House Albert Street Birmingham B4 7UD United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Web:

2 Black Country Telford Housing Market Renewal Area - Phase One A Final Report to Wolverhampton City Council (on behalf of the HMRA Partnership) C Albert Street Birmingham B4 7UD United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Web: welcome@ecotec.co.uk 13a Avenue de Tervuren B-1040 Brussels Belgium Tel: +32 (0) Fax: +32 (0) Orense, 25 Esc. Dcha.3B Madrid Spain Tel: Fax: Marshalsea Road London SE1 1HL United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Park Row Leeds LS1 5JD United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0)

3 CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0 Introduction Background to Phase One Research Housing Market Assessment (HMA) Aims, Objectives and Scope of Phase One Research Stage One: Development of the Evidence Base Stage Two: Identification of the Strategic Development Framework Report Structure The Case for the HMRA Regional Housing Strategy Demand Side Issues Supply Side Issues Key Priorities Rationale for the Selection of the HMRA Area Area Character and Function Summary Economic function Social function Housing function and sub-markets Economic Function Economic Structure Labour Market Profile Economic Strategy Social Function Household incomes and housing choice Deprivation and social structure Housing Function and Sub-Markets Housing Function Housing Sub-Markets Reference Area Introduction Summary Migration Net migration Migration Linkages Migration-Based Reference Area 60

4 4.4 Travel to Work Context Employment centres Net commuting flows Commuting patterns Distance travelled to work Travel to work patterns Drivers of Change Introduction Summary Economic Trends Demographic Trends Social Trends Governance and Policy Drivers Micro-Level Drivers Key Outcomes Future Trajectory Regional Trends Regional economic trends Demographic trends Social trends Sub-regional drivers Industrialisation, De-Industrialisation and Changing Urban Form Governance and Municipalism Public policy Demographic trends Localised/neighbourhood drivers Introduction Housing design and mixed use environments Area stigma Environmental issues and crime Demography and insularity Spiral of decline Policy response: area based programmes Policy response: housing market restructuring Neighbourhood Clusters Neighbourhoods and housing market renewal At risk areas Neighbourhood function and trajectory Housing market weakness Neighbourhood cohesion 155

5 6.3.3 Social exclusion and deprivation Environment and access to services Neighbourhood typologies Conclusions Key Policy & Investment Context Introduction Regional Spatial Policy Housing Development Housing Policy and Investment Neighbourhood Renewal Activity Economic Strategy Transport Strategy Conclusions and Phase Two Recommendations Conclusions Policy-Off Scenarios Phase Two Recommendations - Knowledge Gaps 177

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7 1.0 INTRODUCTION This document constitutes a final report on research undertaken as part of the Phase One work on the development of the prospective Black Country Telford Housing Market Renewal Area (HMRA). The aims of this Phase One research were to develop the evidence base and strategic context for the proposed Housing Market Renewal Area to inform the Housing Market Assessment (HMA). The research was undertaken by a consortium led by ECOTEC Research & Consulting Ltd., including CSR Partnership Ltd, the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at the University of Birmingham, and JDT/Mott McDonald. 1.1 Background to the Phase One Research The 2003 West Midlands Regional Housing Strategy (RHS) identified the Black Country and Telford as one of two areas (the other being the Eastern Corridor of Birmingham-Solihull) facing a potential risk of low demand for certain property types and neighbourhoods. The identification of these two areas followed the advent of two Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders in the West Midlands - the Birmingham-Sandwell Pathfinder ( Urban Living ) and the North Staffordshire Pathfinder ( Renew ). Both of which will now receive substantial Government funding from ODPM, subject to the scheme updates due later this year. The proposed HMRA falls within the Central housing markets area identified in the Regional Strategy as one of two focal areas for action in the region where the potential is identified for the Strategy to deliver wider impact than on the target locality itself. This area involves the Black Country, Birmingham and Coventry and the areas most directly influenced by these markets running west and east - including the high price commuter belt and adjacent rural areas. The West Midlands Regional Housing Board (RHB) has since allocated funding - over the period 2004/05 to 2005/06 - for the establishment of a prospectus for integrated public investment to tackle housing market weakness and changing markets in the prospective Black Country, Telford HMRA. The development of the prospectus will involve in particular: the identification of specific housing market renewal areas where the market is malfunctioning and is likely to continue to do in the absence of some intervention; identification of the drivers affecting changing demand within the intervention area neighbourhoods; and The development of proposals for housing-led investment that are integrated with the wider policy framework for the Black Country (including the Black Country Vision 7

8 2033 and Spatial Framework) and Telford (including Telford s Economic Development Vision and Strategic Framework ). The expectation is that investment in the proposed HMRA would initially be funded through the West Midlands Regional Housing Pot, and subsequently through a second round of the Housing Market Renewal Fund (as part of the next Comprehensive Spending Review), via a long-term programme agreed with ODPM and directed through the Regional Housing Board. Responsibility for the development of the prospectus is held by the HMRA Steering Group - a cross-authority partnership between the four Black Country local authorities and Telford & Wrekin Borough Council - with Wolverhampton City Council acting as the accountable body. The Phase One research - presented in this report - represents an initial phase of research undertaken to inform the process of developing a prospectus for the proposed HMRA - in Phase Two. 1.2 Housing Market Assessment (HMA) The Phase One research has been informed by the Housing Market Assessment (HMA) Manual - developed to provide local authorities and their partners with a framework for better understanding how housing markets operate - and specifically for analysing the supply/demand dynamic at the sub-regional level. The HMA identifies ten steps (see Figure 1.1). The Phase One research has focused particularly on Phase Two of the HMA process involving: Step 3: Analysis of the strategic context Step 4: Analysis of key economic and demographic trends Step 5: Identification of the function of the area 1.3 Aims, Objectives and Scope of the Phase One Research The scope of the Phase One work on developing the prospective HMRA has been fundamentally governed by the requirement for interim reporting in January 2005 to the Regional Housing Board of indicative public sector investment for the Regional Housing Strategy The primary aim for Phase One has, therefore, been to provide the RHB with a suitable case for investment - recognising that this will subsequently need to carry through into Ministerial approval in the context of the 2005 RHS. Phase One has also had the objectives of: Enabling scrutiny by ODPM and the Audit Commission to be successfully accomplished; and 8

9 Ensuring that the proposed HMRA is recognised and integrated with the RES, RPG and sub-regional strategies for the Black Country and Telford. In pursuing these aims and objectives, Phase One has involved two key components, or stages: 1. Stage One: the development of an evidence base to support the rationale for the proposed HMRA and to guide the development of an early intervention programme; and 2. Stage Two: identification of the strategic development framework that will encompass the existing and emerging policy and investment context within which Housing Market Renewal will operate. The objectives and scope of these two stages of work are outlined in more detail in the following sections Stage One: Development of the Evidence Base Stage 1 has had the following four objectives in developing the evidence base for the HMRA: 1. to refine the definitions of the proposed Housing Market Renewal Area - including: identification of sub-markets within the proposed HMRA districts and their hinterland; identification of the role/function of the proposed HMRA and its sub-markets in relation to the regional context 2. To provide a provisional assessment of the drivers of market change in the HMRA in order to start to identify: what is wrong with the Black Country and Telford markets and how can this be expected to change in future?. It is intended that a more robust assessment of drivers of change - informed by additional surveys - should be undertaken as part of a specific work programme as part of Phase Two of the HMRA prospectus development; 3. to identify the gaps in the knowledge base that will need to be filled to frame market interventions for the proposed HMRA - to inform the specification of new research as part of Phase Two of the HMRA prospectus development; and 4. To start to identify clusters of neighbourhoods with similar functions, social base, urban form and environment - informed by the housing sub-markets identified Stage Two: Identification of the Strategic Development Framework Stage Two has had the following objectives in identifying the strategic development framework for the proposed HMRA: 9

10 1. To review the current policy and investment framework relating to the proposed HMRA and, in particular, key policy aspirations for the sub-region. In particular, the review has sought to identify to what extent the policy and investment framework reinforces market fundamentals (working with the grain) or seeks to alter them; 2. to engage key stakeholders in the process of developing the proposed HMRA and, in particular, to identify and understand their aspirations for the proposed HMRA; 3. to identify the scope and scale of intervention required as part of an early action programme; 4. to make recommendations as regards the prioritisation and sequencing of early actions; and 5. To make recommendations for developing the prospectus and investment programme in Phase Two. This report presents the research findings in relation to Stage One and the review of the policy and investment context undertaken in Stage Two. 10

11 Figure 1.1: Housing Market Assessment - Ten Steps 11

12 1.4 Report Structure The remainder of the report is structured as follows: Section 2.0 presents the overall case for the proposed HMRA based on the Phase One research undertaken Sections 3.0 to 5.0 presents the evidence base identified through Stage One as follows: Section 3.0 Section 4.0 Section 5.0 Section 6.0 Section 7.0 Section 7.0 identifies the economic, social and housing function of the area identifies the reference area and area of influence of the proposed HMRA. identifies the regional, sub-regional and localised or neighbourhood drivers of housing market change in the area presents the findings of a first-rung neighbourhood typology analysis of the area presents a summary of the key policy and investment context to the proposed HMRA (with a full review included at Annex B) presents our conclusions from the evidence base development and policy and investment review and our recommendations for Phase Two - including key knowledge gaps 12

13 2.0 THE CASE FOR HOUSING MARKET RENEWAL This section presents the case for a Black Country and Telford Housing Market Renewal Area. It is informed by the key findings of the Phase one research set out in this report The Regional Housing Strategy 2.2 The Birmingham, Black Country sub-region is identified in the Regional Housing Strategy, 2003 as being the West Midlands sub-region - apart from Stoke-on Trent and Coventry - with the most significant issue of changing housing demand - with problems across all tenures and local authority boundaries. The Strategy identifies the Black Country and Telford as being an area at potential risk of low demand for certain property types and neighbourhoods. This is informed by the identification of key trends: Demand Side Issues The Regional Strategy identifies key trends with the potential to contribute to a risk of low demand for certain property types and neighbourhoods in the area - including: low population growth in the region since with a net migration effect on the region between 1991 and 2000 fluctuating between a significant outflow of up to 10,000 households per year (due to out-migration to other parts of the UK) and a very small inflow of 1,000 households per year (due to international migration out-flow); a trend towards decentralisation ( hollowing-out ) of the region s population out of the metropolitan areas and into rural districts - particularly of households in the middle of the family cycle and more affluent households with housing choice; growth of population in the over-65 age group particularly parts of the region including Telford and Wrekin, and to a not insignificant degree in the region s older industrial areas (including Wolverhampton and Sandwell). Demographic ageing has implications for the type of housing required (e.g. increased demand for modern sheltered and very sheltered accommodation) and the turnover of properties (likely to increase in the near future as the population ages) - potentially leading to significant neighbourhood change and low demand effects - particularly, but not exclusively, amongst currently owner-occupied properties; and a growing younger population - particularly amongst black and minority ethnic communities and in the region s older industrial areas - raising particular issues regarding access to affordable housing, supported housing for vulnerable young people, and the need to understand young people s housing aspirations Supply Side Issues The Regional Housing Strategy also identifies key trends in housing supply of significance to the area: 13

14 Tenure Patterns The following trends relating to tenure patterns: the lowest levels of private sector housing in the region occur in Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Walsall (and Birmingham) - with the poorest areas of private stock condition found in the Black Country (and Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke on Trent and Herefordshire); a rapid growth in the region s Housing Association sector - accounting for 36% of all dwellings in the social rented sector in 2001 and projected to rise with future development and further stock transfer; an increased rate of annual housing demolitions across the region in recent years (to 3,509 in 2001/02); and a disproportionate role for social rented housing in the Black Country conurbation which limits the capacity to alter geographical patterns of residential behaviour and deprivation within the region. House Prices The following trends relating to house prices: a dramatic variation in average house prices across the region with an increasing gap between highest and lowest price areas in recent years - with significant consequences for patterns of deprivation and housing need in the region. The lowest value properties are concentrated in the West Midlands conurbation and other areas suffering from industrial decline. The districts with the highest concentration of dwellings in low council tax bands are in the metropolitan districts, the North Staffordshire districts, Telford and Wrekin and older coalfield areas. average prices of terraced houses which have not kept pace with those of all dwellings; and A concentration of affordability problems in higher house price areas - and in particular neighbourhoods with a high demand generated locally from communities with strong locational preferences (e.g. black and minority ethnic communities in Birmingham). Community Cohesion and Cultural Diversity The Strategy identifies particular issues of social deprivation and social polarisation across the region. This is a particular issue for Birmingham and the Black Country where the region s minority ethnic groups are concentrated. The strategy identifies a need to develop the housing choices available to lower income households from the black and minority ethnic community - and to alter patterns of social polarisation through the creation of sustainable communities which are attractive to different groups. Refugees and Asylum Seekers The Strategy identifies as a particular need to consider the continuing and longer-term housing opportunities for asylum seekers and refugees - in a way that does not create tensions or limit their 14

15 opportunities. Closer liaison with the Home Office and National Asylum Support Service (NASS) is identified as important in achieving this Key Priorities Based on the trends identified, the Strategy identifies a number of key priorities: To reflect changing households and needs - in terms of household size and structure and changing demographic patterns - at the same time as using housing as a key driver of demographic and economic change to deliver the objectives of the Regional Spatial Strategy; To create areas of choice - to turn those parts of the region currently associated with dysfunctional markets and out-migration such as that experienced by the Black Country into increasingly successful housing markets that attract in-migration - thereby stemming out-migration from the region; To provide pathways of choice and meet housing aspirations - to diversify the existing housing stock and provide local housing pathways to create sustainable communities - for example by introducing a mix of tenures, property types, sizes and values; and An integrated approach - to deliver a long-term, integrated strategy to deliver sustainable communities - in which housing is one element in addressing social exclusion and as a driver of neighbourhood change and environmental improvement. As regards the Birmingham, Black Country sub-region, The Strategy identifies the need to introduce greater variety into the sub-region s housing markets and to grow attractive neighbourhoods. This will involve an assessment and prioritisation of the viability of neighbourhoods and action to manage the decline and renewal of neighbourhoods as well as the urban renaissance of the sub-region more broadly. Key priorities identified for the Black Country are to deliver an urban renaissance, respond to low demand, raise the quality of affordable housing, deliver housing market renewal and meet the needs and aspirations of BME communities, asylum seekers and refugees. Telford is identified as a priority within the rural areas to the west and south of the Black Country where priorities are to meet the needs of low income households (through social housing provision) and address poor housing conditions. The strategy identifies a need for intervention in the area beyond housing intervention - involving integration with economic development and regeneration policies. 15

16 Rationale for the Selection of the Black Country and Telford Black Country and Telford Linkages The Black Country and Telford represent the industrial heritage of not just the region but the country. Whilst the two areas are physically separate they are linked through economic and social factors. Telford has travel to work links with Wolverhampton, to which it is closest, and to a lesser extent with Dudley. In migration terms, there are links to Wolverhampton and also Birmingham. This suggests that the links between the Black Country and Telford extend both ways, stemming in the past from the history of Telford as a New town rehousing migrants from the conurbation (but still reflected in migration patterns), and more recently from its role as a location for new housing which at least in part serves commuter as well as local employment markets Widespread problem The requirement for a Black Country and Telford Phase One Study is not to identify the most deprived neighbourhoods, important though this it. Rather it is to understand the form, function and trajectory of its micro-markets, to inform action to address the weakest markets. Additionally, any intervention area has to be drawn not just around the weakest neighbourhoods but around an area that best contributes to the housing market renewal of the area as a whole. An HMRA would be important in contributing to the objectives of the Black Country Study and Regional Spatial Strategy. The starting point regarding the Black Country is that despite its size, it is polycentric in nature - unlike neighbouring Birmingham with its clear-cut divide around its inner city and outwards or Telford s New Town footprint. This has manifested itself in the way urban dynamics have been understood in the Black Country and in the extent to which the public policy as a driver of market change has shaped it too. Whilst it has been commonplace to generalise about the Black Country s dependence on low-value manufacturing, discussions of social and related market patterns have arguably been obscured until recent years by administrative boundaries. Thus Sandwell has been seen in terms of a largely homogenous pattern of deprivation and has been targeted for most of the regeneration funding packages available since the 1980s. The intensity of poverty in eastern Wolverhampton has secured the borough SRB schemes and an NDC. The more affluent neighbourhoods of Walsall and Dudley have seemingly rendered them more manageable as districts. Yet this focus on four separate districts, with Sandwell at the apex of regeneration funding support, has arguably not served the wider interests of the conurbation well. Fortunately the advent of bodies such as the Black Country Consortium and greatly enhanced joint working on a range of fronts have changed perspectives very considerably, and this is manifesting itself in the Black Country Study. For the first time, detailed thematic studies are revealing a wider, more complex and more urgent picture of urban change. As regards Telford, housing market problems are particularly evident on the former New Town estates in the south of Telford - Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill - displaying indicators of poor demand, including abandonment. These areas of south Telford are the focus for the Borough s Local Area Agreement. 16

17 2.3.3 The headline picture of prices and voids The primary characteristics of the housing market in the Black Country are a strong and uniform concentration of low value private housing together with a high level of social rented housing. There is a remarkable absence of large areas of higher value and aspirational housing of the kind that might be expected and which are present, for example, in parts of north and south west Birmingham. Figures 2.3 shows the only significant areas of higher values in the Black Country are found in the fringe areas of Aldridge and Streetly in eastern Walsall, Stourbridge/Halesowen and Kingswinford in Dudley, and Tettenhall in Wolverhampton. A core low price area (shown as a dotted line) can be identified (Figure 2.4). Within a band of higher values and some areas of very high value that surround the low value areas that predominate in the Black Country (running in an arc from Lichfield in the north east through Stafford, South Staffordshire and Bridgnorth, and into Wyre Forest and Bromsgrove to the south (Figure 2.1)), south Telford stands out as an isolated but similar low value area to the west (Figures 2.5 and 2.6). More significantly, prices in the Black Country and south Telford are generally losing ground when compared with the region or surrounding areas (Figure 2.3). Buying in the Black Country, especially in Wolverhampton, Sandwell or Walsall, means accepting lower price appreciation than in most other parts of the region. Housing demand and supply in the area are not, in general, out of balance in the way that is evident in some northern housing markets that have experienced similar levels of decline. In part this is because the opportunities for decentralisation of both employment and population have been more strongly restricted by planning policies and poor transport links, although the potential for problems of this kind is present. Thus the Black Country and Telford area does not presently have particularly high void levels and this is true of its existing Pathfinder, the Urban Living area. Even so, Figure 2.8 shows a significant skew in the distribution of void properties (all tenures) within the Black Country, with a concentration to the north. Localities with voids above 10% in 2001 include much of Wolverhampton s inner core, a problematic band of neighbourhoods across central Bilston, and the low demand neighbourhoods around Low Hill. In Walsall the pattern of voids extends northwards from the town centre out to the large municipal estates of Beechdale and Blakenhall (which has undergone Large Scale Voluntary Transfer), In the south of the Black Country, concentrations of voids are much more localised, in Lye and the central Dudley estates; and Windmill Lane in Sandwell. These commonly reflect the location of unpopular flatted estates. This better performance in the southern part of the Black Country reflects the more buoyant market position in Dudley and the impact in Sandwell of vigorous clearance and new build rates over the last 20 years to restructure the housing market. They also reflect the more pronounced current need for social housing in a period where the ratio of house prices to incomes is abnormally high. Figure 2.7 shows pockets of high void rates in south Telford - which is described in Telford and Wrekin s Housing Strategy as suffering issues of abandonment. 17

18 2.3.4 BME growth: a key driver A particular factor - recognised in the draft 2005 Regional Housing Strategy - particularly relevant to the Black Country, is the growth of BME communities. In parts of the Black Country, BME communities are migrating out from traditional inner city locations, especially into wider Wolverhampton and across the southern part of Sandwell. This is far less apparent in the northern Black Country core of mainly former local authority estates, now often highly diversified in tenure, where there are questions over future levels of demand and sustainability. Some BME communities, such as Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, remain concentrated in tightly defined terraced neighbourhoods where the houses are often unfit. Yet these impoverished communities are rapidly expanding resulting in high levels of overcrowding. Responding to this household growth is a key issue in parts of the Black Country Framing the intervention area in the Black Country and Telford The overall analysis confirms that in the Black Country, there is a large central area of housing market weakness, which forms a rough X-shape (Figure 2.9). It extends from the existing Urban Living Pathfinder up to Wolverhampton through the Black Country core, together with another zone of weakness running from Walsall (including areas to the north of the centre) through the core and on to Brierley Hill and Lye in Dudley. This area suffers from low values, a concentration of homogenous and relatively unattractive housing, poor environments, and high levels of deprivation. At a finer grain, this large, and at first uniform, area breaks down into two main types of neighbourhood. The first type is former local authority estates, now often highly diversified in tenure, where there are questions over future levels of demand and sustainability - not least because BME communities have low representation, (who provide one of the main sources of future potential population growth) in these areas. Problems of sustainability are likely to be compounded by the resale of dwellings bought under the Right to Buy into private renting. The long-term impact of the Right to Buy, in relation to demographic change, age stock condition and marginal owner occupation, needs to be explored through further research. The second type of neighbourhood is mainly inner city and contains private housing - often of low quality, and occupied in some cases by households which need larger dwellings, and in others by households who cannot afford maintenance and repair. In combination, these neighbourhoods present few or no opportunities for regeneration without intervention. The potential for gentrification is limited by dwelling types, by poor environments, and by the difficulty of access to services, brought about by the fragmented historical settlement pattern in the Black Country. Overall, concern must be focused more on the northern sub-markets within the Black Country. Both Wolverhampton and Walsall s inner cities are facing difficulty, but in Wolverhampton the problems are more acute at neighbourhood level and are multi-tenure in scope. In Walsall there is a housing resupply issue for the expanding but spatially constrained BME population facing unfitness and overcrowding. Both northern municipal zones face demand issues due to limited inflow to their stigmatised and peripheral environments. Wolverhampton's municipal estates have been subject to restructuring but both the Wolverhampton and Walsall municipal areas and the South Telford estates will need comprehensive intervention over the next years. 18

19 The focus in the weak northern Black Country core towns' zone which contains further ex-council estates will need to be in the Bilston and Tipton areas and other inter-war estates such as 'The Priory' in Dudley. As noted, some of these areas are forming barriers to BME migration within the conurbation and suffer from social problems and poor environments. To the south, the Sandwell inner city is problematic but forms part of the Urban Living Pathfinder area. There are, however, smaller areas of weakness such as Brierley Hill that emerge from the finer-grained neighbourhood typologies. In Telford, the analysis has highlighted problems of market weakness and social exclusion in the south Telford estates associated with Radburn style layouts and poor dwelling design or construction. These estates (Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill) can be identified as requiring particular investment - as prioritised in the Borough s Housing Strategy on the basis of being of questionable construction standard and of displaying clear signs of market failure, including abandonment. The estates are identified as having become increasingly difficult to manage with serious and complex issues of decline including heavy stigma within Telford. Issues faced are: Inherent design weaknesses, with the estates based on Radburn layout - with subsequent problems of crime, anti-social behaviour, vandalism, green space with no amenity value and lack of appropriate parking; Marginal owner-occupation and high levels of private renting - similar to most of inner-city Black Country; Demand for housing of all tenures considerably below other housing areas in Telford; Commercial and community facilities in very poor condition and failing badly; Significant social problems with indicators of generally high levels of deprivation and pockets of particularly severe disadvantage; and Heavy stigma, resident dissatisfaction and limited inflow. In this sense, South Telford is a microcosm of the Black Country core. The problems inherent to these estates are such that a clearance programme on the New Town estates has started for the first time - with approximately 240 units being cleared in South Woodside. Woodside is prioritised for regeneration investment in the Borough - as suffering from particularly high levels of deprivation (amongst the 10% most deprived estates in the country) and containing poor quality housing, much of which is unfit or fails to meet decency standards Future Trajectory The trends in the Black Country economy and in the residential base are well-documented in this paper and in the wider body of research conducted through the Black Country study. Strategically, the main trends affecting the Black Country which are likely to continue are detailed below: There is likely to be a continued decentralisation of population from the core of the conurbation which will not be mitigated by BME household growth or international migration; 19

20 The policy off demographic projections highlighted in this report show that this decline will not be spatially even across the conurbation. The North Black Country, with its large economic and residential hinterland and its more conventional inner-city characteristics is projected to lose most population. The municipal areas within Walsall were the only locations to lose population between (-17.3%). The policy off position predicts a population of only 207,000 for the City of Wolverhampton by 2031; Polarisation is likely to become more evident in both the Black Country and Telford, as manufacturing continues to diminish as a major employer and intense concentrations of people with low or no qualifications remain. Intervention to restructure the skills profile of the workforce in line with current labour force requirements and to address the aspirations of young people will be key; Analysis of educational attainment, incomes and the employment of residents in the Black Country shows that the process of selective out migration over the past three decades has already taken its toll, leaving behind largely those with little choice who are unable to move elsewhere. Without intervention, the prognosis for these areas is of further slow decline, related to patterns of demographic structure, offset but not mitigated by the in migration of BME groups. Competition from areas elsewhere in the region with better employment opportunities and more attractive housing and environments is likely to ensure that those with choice continue to move out or do not come to live in the area. Relatively speaking, this may increase demand and prices in the more attractive parts of the Black Country boroughs; A failure to restructure the residential and environmental offer of the Black Country is perhaps the greatest threat to achieving the aspirations of Regional Planning Guidance which seeks to reduce the net migration from the conurbation to zero in the medium/long term. Given the industrial/employment structure in the core of the Black Country, there is likely to be an increase in the supply of poor quality land resulting from factory closures. This could be extensive enough to result in a progressive collapse in the urban form and the established relationship between land uses. A collapse in the urban form on this scale has been a driver of housing abandonment in Manchester/Salford and Stoke-on-Trent; and In the absence of measures to restructure the housing market there will be risks that issues will arise in relation to social cohesion as BME household growth occurs at the same time as demographic changes affecting the stability of some 1930s council estates. The longer-term future of the south Telford estates without intervention is also problematic. The regeneration of Woodside, which is already underway, has raised expectations and impact on market values across wider areas of south Telford. But as relatively poor quality areas within an environment which is in overall terms relatively attractive, these areas have already developed concentrations of low income households who are either without employment or in poorly paid jobs which are difficult to access because of the physical layout of the New Town - with areas of employment growth located to the north of the Borough. Those who are owners struggle to meet repair and related costs. There is a strong likelihood that these problems will persist and without intervention they may develop and impact on surrounding areas, which at present do not experience them to such a serious extent. 20

21 Figure 2.1: Black Country: Median Price by Postcode Sector 2003 Figure 2.2: Black Country: % Change in Prices

22 Black Country Telford Housing Market Renewal Area Phase 1 Figure 2.3: Average House Price 2003 by Output Area Figure 2.4: Black Country: Unit Postcode Prices,

23 Figure 2.5: Telford: Average House Prices, 2003 Figure 2.6: Telford, Price Changes (All Stock),

24 Figure 2.7: Void Rate All Stock (2001 Census) Figure 2.8: Percentage of Household Spaces which are Vacant, Black Country,

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26 Figure 2.9: Housing Market Weakness Domain 20

27 3.0 AREA CHARACTER AND FUNCTION In this section key aspects of socio-economic function of the Black Country Telford area are briefly considered culminating in the identification of eight housing sub-markets Summary The following key points are identified: Economic Function As regards the economic function of the area: The core of the Black Country and to a large extent south Telford is still defined by an industrial working class dependent on declining economic sectors and without many of the skills needed in the contemporary labour market; These declining sectors have low value-added and lock the Black Country in its diverging trajectory from the rest of the region and even Birmingham. The Black Country Spatial Framework being developed will seek to deliver a major economic transformation of the conurbation based on integration of investment in key employment sites and urban centres, supported by environmental, housing and transport investments. Despite the vulnerability of its manufacturing base, Telford s economy has performed well in regional terms and is identified in the Regional Spatial Strategy as a sub-regional focus for economic development. In particular, RPG identifies the Borough as a strategic focus for major retail, leisure and office developments. Telford and Wrekin's Economic Strategy - focused on seven target economic clusters - envisages expansion of value-added manufacturing and knowledge-based services, and an expanded workforce of 110,000 individuals by 2020; The Wolverhampton-Telford High Technology Corridor recognises the potential of the sub-region to attract investment in high-technology and high-value added activities - including building on Telford s existing polymer engineering and ICT sector base; The distribution of skills levels across the HMRA shows a lack of higher skills levels (NVQ4+) across almost the whole of the Black Country and also south Telford. In fact skills levels are generally very low with a high proportion of the population having below NVQ2 level qualifications - particularly in the Black Country core area. The Black Country Spatial Framework will seek to attract higher skilled workers into the conurbation through provision of high quality housing in higher quality environment. Similarly, Telford and Wrekin s Economic Strategy makes provision for investment in infrastructure and high quality housing to ensure a more highly skilled workforce to support the Borough s economic development. However, a key issue will be to link the more deprived south Telford former New Town estates to new economic opportunities alongside investment in renewal of the physical fabric. 21

28 3.1.2 Social Function As regards the social function of the area: The Black Country can be broadly characterised as a declining, low- income conurbation. It also demonstrates particular forms of social and economic polarisation that impact on, and are in turn exacerbated by the operation of the housing market. This is due in part to the sorting effect of the residential housing market: a desirable area commands a price premium; poorer households are clustered together in more affordable and invariably poorer quality locations 1 ; There are clusters of neighbourhoods amongst the most deprived in the country that essentially define the social characteristics of a central zone of the Black Country which contains around half its population some 566,000 people. Importantly, its scale and its problems have been masked by administrative boundaries, despite being in part defined by the fact that it straddles them; Income differentiates south Telford from the rest of urban Telford, with disadvantaged south Telford residents physically distant from the growth nodes towards the north of urban Telford. The south Telford wards of Woodside, Brookside and Cuckoo Oak - particularly Woodside - are characterised by indicators of social and economic disadvantage including: high unemployment rates (up to 43% in some parts), low skills levels (with up to 56% with no qualifications in some parts), low skilled occupations (up to 60% in some areas), child poverty indicators and poor health indicators Housing Function and Sub-Markets As regards the housing function of the area: Ten housing sub-markets can be identified in the Black Country and urban Telford - based on groups of similar neighbourhoods based on the urban grain of the conurbation (dominant housing tenure and property type and period of development in the last century), and adjusted to reflect socio-economic factors, neighbourhood function, and housing market performance. The eight Black Country sub-markets can be considered in terms of four broad categories - the first three of which would provide the focus for the HMA - and which can be characterised by a generally successful suburban fringe as distinct from a core area which matches closely with nearly all domains of the Government s IMD 2004: Inner-city areas based on three major historic centres of the Black Country; Two municipal areas based on the original footprint of large socially rented areas located on the periphery; Freestanding Black Country towns with a loosely distinguished northern and southern component; and 1 Prime Minister s Strategy Office and ODPM (2005), Improving the Prospects of People Living in Areas of Multiple Deprivation in England, page

29 A single suburban fringe containing nearly half (46.8%) of the total population of the Black Country. Within urban Telford a clear distinction can be made between the south Telford New Town estates and the rest of Telford. Within these estates - based on Radburn-style layout - described as being of questionable construction standard, with clear signs of market failure, including abandonment. Issues include low house prices, limited sales and indicators of deprivation (particularly on the Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill estates), insularity and low neighbourhood satisfaction. Figure 3.1 shows the sub-markets identified Economic Function There were a total million jobs in Birmingham, the Black Country & Telford in 2003 according to the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) Survey. Figure 3.2 uses 2001 census data to show the main concentrations of this employment within these areas. These are the central Birmingham wards and the traditional core areas of the Black Country, especially the industrial corridor stretching from Smethwick through to Wolverhampton city centre. There is also a concentration in Telford town centre. 23

30 Figure 3.1: Black Country and Telford Sub-Markets 24

31 Figure 3.2: Principal locations of employment in the Black Country and Telford Economic Structure Table 3.1 outlines the industrial structure of employment in Telford and Wrekin and the Black Country (Census, 2001). The figures show that manufacturing remains the largest employment sector in the area - accounting for over a quarter of all jobs. The next most significant sectors are the wholesale and retail trade (distribution) and public sector activities. Table 3.1: Industrial Structure (% of Total Employment), 2001 Census Black Country Telford Agriculture Fishing Mining and quarrying Manufacturing Electricity, gas and water supply Construction Wholesale and retail trade Hotels and catering Transport storage and communication Financial intermediation Real estate, renting and business activities Public administration and defence Education Health and social work Other TOTAL Source: Census 2001, Key Statistics (Table KS11AN) 25

32 Labour Market Profile Figures 3.4 and 3.5 show employment rates amongst the working age population in the Black Country and Telford. These figures clearly show a core area in the Black Country with low levels of employment surrounded by higher employment areas. The distribution of skills levels shows a lack of higher skills levels (NVQ4+) across almost the whole of the Black Country and also south Telford (Figures 3.3 and 3.6). In fact skills levels are generally very low with a high proportion of the population having below NVQ2 level qualifications - particularly in the Black Country core area as shown in Figure 3.8. Some 50% of the workforce of the Black Country Telford sub-region are only qualified to NVQ1 or have no qualifications. Telford falls short of the regional average for NVQ4 and above skills (14.2% against 16.2%). Dudley and Telford are respectively above and below the regional average for employees in managerial and senior positions (13.3% region; 13% Telford; 14.1% Dudley) but Walsall, Sandwell and Wolverhampton are the three worst performing labour market areas in the West Midlands, against this criterion. Wolverhampton and also Walsall are highly polarised in terms of qualifications, both with striking east-west splits reflecting the suburban watershed. Within Sandwell, Bearwood is the only neighbourhood with more than a quarter of the population with higher-level qualifications and is similar in profile to the rest of inner suburban Birmingham. Figure 3.9 shows much of the core areas of the Black Country falls within the worst 10% of localities nationally in terms of educational indicators. There are also concentrations in south Telford (Figure 3.12). The Black Country Study has identified that only 14% of residents in the Black Country are in social classes A and B compared to 22% nationally. 26

33 Figure 3.3: Higher-level qualifications, % of population with NVQ Level 4+ Black Country 2001 Figure 3.4: % of working age population who are in employment, Black Country

34 Figure 3.5: % of working age population who are Figure 3.6: Higher-Level Qualifications, % of population with Employed Urban Telford 2001 NVQ Level 4+ Urban Telford

35 Figure 3.7: Black Country: Unskilled/Semi-Skilled Workers, Black Country 2001 Black Country 2001 Figure 3.8: Black Country: Qualifications Levels (NVQ 1 or No), 29

36 Figure 3.9: Black Country: IMD 2004 Education Domain Figure 3.10: Black Country: IMD 2004 Income Domain 30

37 Figure 3.11: Urban Telford IMD 2004 Income Domain Figure 3.12: Urban Telford IMD 2004 Education Domain 31

38 Economic Strategy The Black Country The Spatial Framework being developed for the Black Country seeks to reverse out-migration, raise income levels and change the socio-economic mix of the conurbation. A key element of the Spatial Framework will be an optimal economic strategy for the Black Country and its spatial implications. The Long-Term Economic Strategy developed for the Black Country to aims to raise incomes in the Black Country to the national average outside London by achieving: sectoral change towards higher value added activities and with more employment in the finance/business services, arts and leisure and logistics sectors; a revision of the occupational structures - with higher proportions of managers and professionals; and workforce development - through a non-conventional strategy focused on major upskilling This will be in addition to activity to reverse population decline - with a target of 200,000 additional people by 2030 half of whom are of working age - and activity to encourage innovation and productivity. A major challenge for the Black Country - identified through the Black Country Study 3 -is to deliver sites of sufficient quality and accessibility required for industrial restructuring - given the complex urban form that has developed around the traditional industrial base offering widespread but piecemeal development opportunities, hampered by the continuing legacy of soil pollution and land ownership patterns. The strategy therefore identifies an action plan focused on five areas - including (in addition to business engagement, development of knowledge economy infrastructure, and development of leisure and arts facilities and events): land assembly to deliver sites of high environmental quality with central sites for office development and off-centre sites for manufacturing and logistics; complete renewal of the environment with 3,000 hectares and 12m sq.m. of modern floorspace developed every 15 years, development of an urban park, delivery of quality urban design (spaces and buildings), management of environmental impacts and development of environmental goods and services; and Accessibility of sites - with reasonable access to major roads and motorways identified as a priority. 2 GHK (2004) The Black Country in 2003: A Long Term Economic Strategy 3 GHK (July 2004) Spatial Implications of the Proposed Economic Strategy Version 3 32

39 The Black Country Study provides an indication of the scale of development implied by the Economic Strategy (Table 3.2). Research has recently been commissioned to identify the capacity for delivery of employment land. The Black Country s urban centres are accorded a central role in the delivery of the Black Country Vision, the regeneration of the conurbation and the diversification and modernisation of its economy towards knowledge economy and service sectors. For example, the Black Country Study identifies that whilst some office provision will be accommodated in off-centre business parks along public transport corridors, the majority of jobs are expected to be located in urban centres. The Vision envisages a polycentric City made up of four strategic thriving and distinctive retail and commercial city centres each playing a unique role: - West Bromwich home to THE PUBLIC - Walsall known for its culture - Wolverhampton known for its universities and R&D base - Brierley Hill known for its shopping - (plus Dudley transformed into a national icon for urban living) This would represent a concentration of future development and employment in and around these strategic centres (whereas current employment is more dispersed amongst the larger number of district centres in the Black Country). Telford Telford is identified in the Regional Spatial Strategy as a sub-regional focus for development (including housing) on the basis of its potential to attract new investment. RPG identifies Telford as a strategic focus for major retail, leisure and office developments. Although there is a recognized need to define and clarify Telford's role in the wider regional and sub-regional context ('Telford First' Business Plan). Designation of the Wolverhampton-Telford High Technology Corridor recognises Telford s potential to develop high-technology and high value added activities - particularly building on the Borough s existing polymer engineering and ICT sector base. Telford and Wrekin's vision is for Telford to be re-established as a major sustained growth point in the region (in terms of population and economic activity) - with a vision of a diversified economy by 2020 with strength in certain knowledge sector industries (value added manufacturing), certain services and an expanded workforce of 110,000 individuals. Attraction of highly skilled workers (as residents or commuters - the Borough has a high rate of net in-commuting) is identified as key to the development of the Borough s high tech industrial base. SQW note that the Borough already has high quality executive housing stock and that the housing land supply provides opportunities to create high quality residential environments - although there is a potential gap in housing supply for young professionals which the Borough will seek to address. Establishment of the Telford First Regeneration Company and restructuring of the Telford Development Agency as an independent economic development company aims to co-ordinate investment priorities towards delivery of the Borough s economic strategy - amongst participating (English Partnerships, the Borough and AWM) partners and non-participating partners (e.g. the 33

40 Housing Corporation). A main priority will be the re-planning and re-development of Telford Town Centre - as a critical project for driving economic growth Social Function The following sections describe the social function of the area in terms of Household Incomes and Housing Choice Figure 3.13 shows income levels across Black Country and Telford and the adjoining districts. Wolverhampton has the lowest median income level in the West Midlands region ( 13,200). Sandwell also has a low median income level ( 13,800). In both cases the mean values are higher, suggesting a range of income levels, but low-income levels are likely to characterise the specific intervention areas within a housing market renewal area. Dudley and Walsall perform better, and Telford better still but all fall some way short of the more affluent areas (e.g. Warwick and Solihull). Income levels are closely related to skills and occupational levels. Income differentiates the central zone of the Black Country from the rest and south Telford from the rest of urban Telford (see IMD income domain, Figures 3.10 and 3.11). Within the area there are in fact wide variations mainly shaped by the concentrations of terraced housing and social housing which act as natural watersheds. Owner occupation is lower, due to the locations of large council estates and in the terraced areas, a growing private rented sector. The social sector houses generally poor households 4. The private rented sector represents transitional use 5 by students, some BME groups and young, single person households Deprivation and Social Structure Figure 3.13 maps the Black Country against the overall deprivation index, the IMD It shows a huge central zone with localities in the worst 10% or 20% nationally, which intertwine an area with around 566,000 people living in it. The spatial extent and fragmented nature of this central zone is of huge strategic significance. Not surprisingly, the central area features strongly in the various IMD health, employment, income domains as well as the education domain as mentioned above. This concentration of deprived communities in the Black Country is partly due to the concentrations of BME communities, which are particularly (but not uniformly) disadvantaged (see section 5.4.2). It also reflects concentrations of single person households characteristic of the inner city, lower proportions of families with children (Figures 3.16 and 3.17) and also an almost precise match of lone parents with social rented areas within the central zone. Its population is generally younger, although there are also pockets with high elderly populations. 4 In the 1970s the proportion of non-earning households was 11%; in 2002 it was 67% and over half its working age households were workless (Prime Minister s Strategy Office and ODPM (2005), Improving the Prospects of People Living in Areas of Multiple Deprivation in England, page 50). 5 A survey of privately renting tenants in Sandwell in 1999 found high levels of churning: 39% in their current property less than 12 months, with 28% living in more than 3 properties in the last five years; 41% planning to move in the next 12 months (CSR 2000). Overall, 55% had moved into Sandwell from outside the Borough. Private renting is not confined to low-income areas as can be seen from Figure xx with concentrations in Stourbridge and Halesowen, and Bearwood stretching southwards in affluent Harborne and Edgbaston. 34

41 The south Telford estates reflect the core Black Country skew towards single person and lone parent households, and couples with children. (Figures 3.18 and 3.19) In Madeley North there are pockets of elderly residents. The estates are similarly characterised by high unemployment and low skills levels and have been previously targeted for regeneration through SRB funding. Commercial and community facilities are in very poor condition and are failing badly. Social (and anti-social) issues have become significant. Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill in particular have localities within the most 10% of deprived areas nationally according to the IMD (Figure 3.15). They feature strongly within the employment, income, education and to some extent crime domains of the IMD. Taken together, the social profile of the south Telford estates, their ex-new town footprint with low values and limited sales is similar to many of the Black Country s major social estates which are affected by stigma and limited inflow. The SRB evaluations found negative perceptions around Woodside and Sutton Hill. 35

42 Figure 3.13: Household Income 2003, by 2001 Output Area 36

43 Figure 3.14: Black Country: IMD 2004 Overall Ranking Figure 3.15: Urban Telford IMD 2004, Crime Domain 37

44 Figure 3.16: Black Country Married/cohabiting couples with dependent children Figure 3.17: Black Country One person households as a % of total (2001 Census) 38

45 3.7 Figure 3.18: Urban Telford One Person Households Figure 3.19: Urban Telford Married/cohabiting couples with As a % of total (2001 Census) 3.8 dependent children (2001 Census) 39

46 Housing Function and Sub-Markets This section sets out the housing function of the area and identifies a number of housing submarkets. Research around housing markets and urban design increasingly identifies market segments within urban areas and conurbations, which for analytical purposes are divided into a number of types of related neighbourhoods which form typologies or zones within the conurbation. This highlights commonality within zones and differences between them, and is important for policy purposes Housing Function As in most Midlands and Northern urban areas, mining and manufacturing industry attracted concentrations of high density, poor quality private rented housing in the Black Country which transferred into low value owner occupied stock in the period. From the 1920s, and more rapidly after 1945, further expansion was through a combination of local authority and private sector housing provision, with a strong emphasis on the former arising from the relatively low incomes of those in the area. In many cities, for example in nearby Birmingham, affluent suburbs have emerged through the presence of a critical mass of industrialists, professionals and other groups, but this is rare in the Black Country because of the fragmented nature of the settlement pattern. The economic history of the Black Country has thus produced a predominantly low value, low income housing stock, vulnerable to changes in demand such as shifting tenure preferences and the desire for better quality. Against any comparator, the proportion of social rented housing in the four Black Country boroughs is exceptionally high (see Figure 3.21). This is a factor of its industrial past and the need for low cost rented housing for those employed in manufacturing industry and also a degree of competition for tenants between Black Country authorities. In contrast, Birmingham s inner suburban neighbourhoods such as Edgbaston, Harborne, Kings Heath, Moseley, and Selly Oak which form an arc in the southwest of the city, enjoy a varied housing choice with high quality public realm and good local amenities and services including shopping. Figure 3.22 shows that social rented provision is concentrated in central and eastern Wolverhampton, central and western Walsall, throughout Sandwell, and in the north and east of Dudley. Even more significant is the comparison of Figure 3.23 with Figure The latter shows the high-water mark of council housing in It shows for example that the northern half of Sandwell was heavily dominated by council housing, as were entire neighbourhoods in the northern parts of Wolverhampton and Walsall. Figure 3.20 shows the dominant dwelling type across the Black Country. The proportion of detached dwellings (which meet some types of housing aspiration especially for families with children) is generally low, and is confined to the fringe higher value areas of private housing notably Stourbridge and Tettenhall. Flats/maisonettes are located in inner city areas and in many council estates such as in Tipton and central Dudley. Terraced dwellings are more prominent in the core Black Country areas, especially inner Wolverhampton and Walsall and Smethwick. There are fairly limited concentrations of these, however, due to: 40

47 The highly dispersed pattern settlement still characterising the Black Country by the high tide of terraced housing around 1920; and Significant clearance of terraced housing due to its very poor construction standard and the consequent need for an active clearance policy, especially in Sandwell and Wolverhampton 6. A recent study of housing needs in Telford and Wrekin identified key housing trends in the Borough. Clear differences can be identified between several estates in south Telford - where are several neighbourhoods with a socio-economic profile very similar to the core of the Black Country - and the rest of the Borough. These are the mainly new town estates totalling around 7,100 dwellings built in the early 1970s to the largely discredited Radburn-style design (see section 5.5.1) located in the neighbourhoods of Woodside, Brookside, Sutton Hill and Madeley North. Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill were built as social housing estates to house people displaced by slum clearance largely from the Black Country. The housing function of the Borough as a whole and the South Telford New Town estates can be characterised as follows: The Borough has a buoyant housing market - with the Borough a considerable net gainer from in-migration assessed to be housing generated - with significant levels of daily commuting back to Wolverhampton or the Black Country. Private sector void rates have fallen since 1995, and more rapidly since 1999 to reflect the favourable housing market conditions - although social rented void rates are high. The Borough is expected to continue to be a major housing (and employment) growth point in the region as identified in the Regional Spatial Strategy and RPG targets to However, a recent SWOT analysis (SQW, 2004) notes a substantial slow-down in the rate of housing development in the Borough in 2003/04 (600 units) - attributed to a national slowdown in housing development and a review of English Partnership sites (who own some 90% of development land in the Borough). The report also identifies that at traditional densities the current housing land supply is insufficient to deliver RPG housing targets for the Borough - with an estimate that only some 50% of the required units could be delivered; These overall market trends disguise low demand on South Telford New Town estates - where there are high levels of private renting similar to most of the inner city Black Country levels - and where there are issues of abandonment are identified and areas of high void rates can be identified; The pattern of tenure in the Borough is increasingly similar to the national average with almost 70% of households owning their home, with the social rented sector a little larger 6 An interesting contrast in this respect is Stoke-on-Trent, which historically has undertaken only limited clearance of terraced housing. Overall an estimated 52% of Stoke-on-Trent s terraced stock was built before 1880, which is equivalent to 19% of the city s contemporary stock. In contrast, only an estimated 9% of the terraced stock is pre-1880 in Sandwell, and this is equivalent to just 2% of the Borough s housing. Source: North Staffordshire housing market assessment, CSR Partnership 2004, page

48 than average (about 50% of the stock - with 2,500 identified as statutorily unfit) and the private sector smaller. South Telford has lower levels of home ownership, more social rented provision and high levels of private renting (with up to 20% of the stock being owned by private landlords in some areas) compared to the rest of the Borough. Owner occupation in the area can be described as marginal linked to the fire sale of property by the New Town Corporation in the 1980s ; The Borough has a high proportion of detached and semi-detached properties and a lower proportion of terraced houses and flats. Only 2% of owner occupied dwellings are flats or maisonettes compared to around a quarter of tenanted dwellings. On the South Telford New Town estates - designed according to Radburn layout - the housing type is mainly (54%) modern terraced (some walled with wood) interspersed with flats/maisonettes. The poor design layout of these estates is linked to problems of crime, antisocial behaviour, vandalism, green space with no amenity value and lack of appropriate parking. There is a shortage of properties for sale at the first-time buyer end of the market in the Borough due to price rises - including at the lower end of the market - with the average dwelling price in the Borough at the end of ,000 - an increase of 22% over the previous year. The Local Plan identifies a need for affordable housing including low-cost market housing and social housing - with a target of 32% of dwellings available for rent or shared ownership via an RSL. Again these overall figures disguise lower house prices on South Telford New Town estates compared to the rest of the Borough - with prices on a par with the core Black Country sub-markets. Demand for housing of all tenures in the area is considerably below other housing areas in the rest of the Borough with low sales reflecting limited resale of properties bought through the Right to Buy. Over the years the South Telford estates have become increasingly difficult to manage and today suffer from serious and complex issues of decline including heavy stigma within Telford. The problems inherent to these estates are such that a clearance programme on the New Town estates has started for the first time - with approximately 240 units being cleared in South Woodside. The longer-term future of these estates without intervention is problematic. 42

49 Figure 3.20: Household Accommodation Type, Black Country,

50 Figure 3.21: Household Tenure,

51 3.9.1 Figure 3.22: Household Tenure, Black Country, 2001 Figure 3.23: Household Tenure, Black Country,

52 Housing Sub-Markets The approach taken here groups similar neighbourhoods based on the urban grain of the conurbation: that is, the dominant housing tenure and property type, and the period of development in the last century. These neighbourhood groupings can then be adjusted to reflect socio-economic factors, neighbourhood function, and housing market performance. The lack of a common approach to neighbourhood identification in the Black Country makes this approach to market segmentation difficult to apply here. Nevertheless it is possible to distinguish eight such sub-markets within the Black Country and for our purposes a further two within urban Telford (Figure 3.1). Each of the submarkets are discussed in turn below. Data for each of the sub-markets is shown in Tables 3.3 to 3.7. Inner City Sandwell This covers the northern half of Smethwick and the older areas of West Bromwich and Oldbury and accounts for 5.3% of Black Country population. It is also effectively an extension of west Birmingham (hence the Housing Market Renewal cross-boundary link). Smethwick in particular has experienced long-term population loss, collapsing demand for social housing and mounting social problems (see case study in section 5.5.6). This is a factor in the zone s 18% population loss in the 1980s although there has been a recovery since. House prices have more than doubled since 1996 but from a low base. There are still problems with high voids in the Windmill Lane area and parts of West Bromwich. Some 12.3% of the stock is private rented. There are localities badly affected by crime. These areas have poor quality terraced and often highly stigmatised housing, with mixed use and poor environments including arterial routes and physical severance of housing areas. Multi-tenure clearance has been actively pursued. West Bromwich is a major regeneration focus for the borough. The recent new build here and in Smethwick has been highly popular in mainly meeting aspirations from the area s majority and highly varied BME community. The redevelopment of the Cape Hill brewery site can be expected to continue this process. There is a population skew towards young, single people, recent refugees and pockets of elderly. It has the lowest mobility of the three inner city areas with 10.1% of the population moving home in the year before the 2001 census. Inner City Wolverhampton This area has a population of 34,465 (3.2% of the Black Country total) with 11 neighbourhoods that equate with the historic centre of the city as it had developed by 1920 in a band to the south and west of the present ring road and an eastern ribbon extending into Heath Town. Much of the stock is highdensity terraced housing, with significant numbers of flats built by the local authority in the 1960s following slum clearance. This cosmopolitan area is a microcosm of Birmingham, with a highly diverse BME, refugee and student population in the Whitmore Reans area and large Indian community to the south in Blakenhall. The overall population rose by 4% in the 1990s after a large fall in the 80s - despite the demolition of Blakenhall Gardens. There is a high level of single person households in all neighbourhoods but Blakenhall. 46

53 Population turnover is the highest of the sub-markets (18%) partly reflecting the large student market, which is also a factor in the presence of the largest private rented market (21%). Almost a third (32%) is socially rented reflecting the flats located throughout the zone (36%). Although inner city Wolverhampton has enjoyed the greatest price risesof the sub-market areas identified in the period (+132%), they are still low for the conurbation. It has one of the highest concentrations of voids in the Black Country. Park Village, a small Victorian neighbourhood to the east is affected by withdrawal of an NASS contract and has rising voids. There is market failure in the NDC area of All Saints, which is affected by crime, stigma and a poor urban form. The development of St John s urban village could eventually see around 2,000 new residential units within and adjacent to the NDC area. Inner City Walsall This zone comprises the tightly defined neighbourhoods and estates around the town centre that formed part of the old City Challenge area with a population of 47,245 (4.4% of the Black Country total). It contains an expanding BME community, mainly Pakistani, experiencing overcrowding and some students. These are located in areas of mainly poor terraced housing with pockets of private renting and high voids. Crime is high, reflecting its town centre position. House prices are the second highest in the Black Country at 86,052 (+114% since 1996) partly reflecting internal household growth. It remains, however, highly polarised from its suburban hinterland. Municipal Wolverhampton This covers the mass interwar council estates to the north in Low Hill, the 70s Dovecote estate to the north west and early post-war estates in the south and east of the city. Right-to-Buy Sales and private build have taken the proportion of the stock that is social rented down to below 50% according to the 2001 Census. Overall the zone has a population of 38,470 (3.6% of Black Country total). The northern cluster of neighbourhoods nevertheless exhibits social, crime, economic and environmental problems in a low demand area of more than 7,500 dwellings. The market in the Lower Fifth Avenue/Bushbury Triangle neighbourhoods is especially weak with problematic private renting, high voids and anti-social behaviour. A CURS study of this market noted the poor local environment due to the West Coast main railway line, the Goodyear factory and a number of other non-conforming uses. 7 However, new build (70% for market sale and 30% for rental) is now on site in Bushbury Triangle and Goodyear has come under the ownership of St. Modwen - with potential for impact on adjoining markets. Overall the market across the zone will need significant restructuring over the decade. The south east cluster around Parkfields/East Park is currently performing better but faces a similar declining trajectory. Prices have doubled between 1996 and 2003 but at an average of 64,868 are the lowest amongst the sub-markets in the conurbation. Generally the population is poor but stable, with only 9% annual mobility. 7 Brendan Nevin, CURS (2001), Changing Demand for Housing in Low Hill/Bushbury: A Discussion Paper. 47

54 Municipal Walsall The zone extends northwards from Walsall Town to include the huge council-built estates of Beechdale, Leamore and Blakenall targeted in City Challenge, SRB and NDC area-based regeneration initiatives. These also exhibit monolithic design issues, social problems and high voids (pockets 10% +). Price growth is the weakest of the sub-markets and prices are above only its Wolverhampton counterpart. As with Walsall s inner core, it is highly polarised from its suburban counterpart, with most of it within the worst 10% for IMD income, health, and employment and environmental indicators. Population loss has been consistent and is down 17% since 1981 to 33,512. Northern Black Country core This large area accounts for 15.2% of the Black Country population. It straddles parts of three Black Country districts and includes the towns of Willenhall, Darlaston, Bilston, Wednesbury, and parts of Coseley, Tipton and Dudley and the post-war neighbourhoods of West Bromwich. These remain parochial and largely freestanding towns defined by bands of industrial use and overall the urban form is highly fragmented. Mixed use is still an issue to the north and remediation costs following closures are recognised as a problem. It has large concentrations of inter-war council housing that now exhibit a range of social problems with the loss of economic function and falling population. Bilston for example, a town particularly hit by factory closures has issues of low prices, economic exclusion, poor health, high crime and poor access to services in an east-west arc across the town. The development of the nearby urban village with capacity for 1,300 homes is a priority. Bilston has a very similar profile to the council areas of Tipton which will be the focus for future clearance. The Black Country Development Corporation achieved major impact with replacement activity along the spine road and new housing that has attracted inflow to the core of the conurbation, but prices remain low, and growth in values since 1996 are the second lowest of the eight submarkets. Southern Black Country core This includes the core of Tipton, Rowley Regis, southern Oldbury, Cradley Heath, Netherton, Brierley Hill and Lye. The zone accounts for 18.3% of Black Country population. The boundary between the southern and northern Black Country cores is not clear-cut and is partly topographical with the Rowley hills being the major divide of the Black Country. The stock profile between the two zones is nearly identical but the southern area has a slightly lower proportion of social renting. The environment is generally better but still features badly in the IMD. The Black Country villages in the south have partly suburbanised with heavy industry long gone but they have a poor transport infrastructure. There are issues around declining mixed use areas in Lye. House prices in the south are higher and the gap has widened since Voids are lower with some localised problems. The primary distinction between the two zones, however, is the apparent watershed in terms of localities where BME populations are resident and are expanding into. Three wards covering highly insular white council estates located in the northern core have recently elected BNP councillors 8, 8 Castle & Priory in Dudley and Princes End and Great Bridge in Sandwell. 48

55 while in contrast areas to the south in Tipton and Dudley Towns and Lye have Pakistani and mixed BME communities. This may be a factor in the south s population growth of 8.1% in The suburban fringe This major zone, containing 498,241 people (46.8% of the total) extends clockwise from Halesowen/Stourbridge in the south, to Kingswinford, Sedgley, Penn and Tettenhall in the west, and Wednesfield through to Aldridge/Brownhills in the north. It contains the most affluent, qualified social groups and is overwhelmingly white (except in Wolverhampton) in often detached higher priced post-war localities around scattered Victorian villages. Owner occupation is at 75%. Values averaged 125,012 in 2003 having more than doubled since Current Government policy and high land values are driving a gradual process of intensification in these areas. The population is stable since 1981 and residential mobility the lowest of the sub-markets. To the south Bearwood is probably the only example in the Black Country of an inner suburban neighbourhood akin to Birmingham s high-priced Victorian Harborne-Edgbaston-Moseley-Kings Heath areas. The suburban fringe is not homogenous: although it has high proportion of families and elderly households, especially areas such as Amblecote and Penn, there are significant numbers of young and single person households in Bearwood and Stourbridge. It also includes localities of poor but usually stable social housing obscured by favourable ward-level indicators. South Telford South Telford is characterised by mainly former New Town estates containing approximately 8,000 properties built to the discredited Radburn-style design to house people displaced by slum clearance from the Black Country. (Only Chelmsley Wood in Solihull has a similar concentration of Radburnstyle housing on this scale in the West Midlands). Many of these properties are now in private ownership, and ownership patterns are fragmented with similar levels of private-renting to the inner city Black Country. Prices are lower than the municipal zones of Wolverhampton and Walsall, their closest counterparts. Voids are low, but mobility is high and although moves tend to be highly localised due to isolation from the rest of urban Telford. The former New Town estates are highly insular in outlook and badly stigmatised. Urban Telford The remaining residential areas of Telford, especially those north of the M54, have a housing profile close to the regional average. House prices are nearly double the level of south Telford but still lower than the Black Country s suburban fringe despite a higher proportion of detached properties. Price difference and the attractive physical environment and amenities underline the continued attractiveness of the area to purchasers from the Black Country. Defining an Intervention Area The analysis of socio-economic function in the previous section pointed to a highly disadvantaged but not homogenous central zone of neighbourhoods in the Black Country. This can in turn be considered in terms of three broad categories - which would provide the focus for an HMRA intervention area: Inner city areas based on three major historic centres of the Black Country; 49

56 Two municipal areas based on the original footprint of large socially rented areas located on the periphery; and Freestanding Black Country towns with a loosely distinguished northern and southern component. A final category constitutes the eighth Black Country sub-market, a single suburban fringe containing nearly half (46.8%) of the total population of the Black Country. The polycentricity of the Black Country arising from its historically fragmented pattern precludes any handy inner city moniker for a nevertheless highly disadvantaged core. This problematic core of the Black Country is highly complex and diverse, with several inner city and social periphery zones operating around a jumble of old towns and villages still defined by the historic patterns of economic land use. Several sub-markets exist within this core area. Overall, concern must be focused more on the Black Country northern sub-markets. Both Wolverhampton and Walsall s inner cities are facing difficulty - although in Wolverhampton the problems are more acute at neighbourhood level and are multi-tenure in scope. In Walsall there is a housing re-supply issue for the expanding but spatially constrained BME population facing unfitness and overcrowding. Both municipal zones face demand issues due to limited inflow to their stigmatised and peripheral environments. The Wolverhampton estates have been subject to restructuring but both areas will need comprehensive intervention over the next years. The focus in the weak northern Black Country core towns zone will need to be in the Bilston and Tipton area and other inter-war estates such as Priory in Dudley. Some of these areas are forming barriers to BME migration within the conurbation and suffer from social problems and poor environments. To the south, the Sandwell inner city is problematic but forms part of the Urban Living Pathfinder area. There are, however, smaller areas of weakness such as Brierley Hill that emerge from the finer-grained neighbourhood typologies. The south Telford former-new Town estates (Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill) are also identified as requiring particular investment given the complex issues which they face. 50

57 Figure 3.24: Black Country and Telford Sub-Markets 51

58 Table 3.3: HMRA sub-markets: house prices Sub Market Sales 1996 Sales 2003 Mean Price 2003 % Change Inner City Sandwell , Inner City Walsall , Inner City Wolverhampton , Municipal Walsall , Municipal Wolverhampton , Northern Black Country Core 1,188 1,760 79, Southern Black Country Core 2,014 2,781 85, Suburban Fringe 6,608 7, , South Telford Estates , Rest of Telford 1,877 2, , Source: ODPM/Land Registry 52

59 Table 3.4: HMRA sub-markets: population change % Total Submarkets Population % Change % Change % Change Sub-Market Population 1981 Population 1991 Population /91 91/01 81/01 Inner City Sandwell 64,374 52,692 55, Inner City Walsall 47,316 45,772 47, Inner City Wolverhampton 38,678 33,073 34, Municipal Walsall 40,519 36,653 33, Municipal Wolverhampton 44,087 38,416 38, Northern Black Country Core 179, , , Southern Black Country Core 193, , , Suburban Fringe 491, , , South Telford Estates 17,222 15,948 16, Rest of Telford 104, , , Source: Census of Population 1981, 1991, and

60 Table 3.5: HMRA sub-markets: housing type % % Semidetached % % Sub-Market Population Dwellings Detached Detached Semi Terraced Terraced Flat Flat/Other Inner City Sandwell 55,997 23,329 1, , , , Inner City Walsall 47,245 19,185 1, , , Inner City Wolverhampton 34,465 15,505 1, , , , Municipal Walsall 33,512 13,745 1, , , , Municipal Wolverhampton 38,470 15,864 1, , , , Northern Black Country Core 162,054 67,598 7, , , , Southern Black Country Core 194,596 82,640 10, , , , Suburban Fringe 498, ,581 51, , , , South Telford Estates 16,982 7, , , , Rest of Telford 140,025 57,654 19, , , , Source: Census of Population 2001 Table 3.6: HMRA sub-markets: tenure 2001 (Source: Census of Population 2001) Sub-Market Dwellings Owner Occupied % Owner Occupied Social Rented % Social Rented Private Rented % Private Rented Inner City Sandwell 23,329 11, , , Inner City Walsall 19,185 9, , , Inner City Wolverhampton 15,505 6, , , Municipal Walsall 13,745 5, , Municipal Wolverhampton 15,864 6, , , Northern Black Country Core 67,598 34, , , Southern Black Country Core 82,640 48, , , Suburban Fringe 209, , , , South Telford Estates 7,100 3, , Rest of Telford 57,654 39, ,

61 Table 3.7: HMRA sub-markets: People moving address in previous 12 months, 2001 Sub-market Population Not Moved Moved % Moved Inner City Sandwell 55,997 50,360 5, Inner City Walsall 47,245 41,743 5, Inner City Wolverhampton 34,465 28,251 6, Metropolitan Walsall 33,512 30,514 2, Municipal Wolverhampton 38,470 35,025 3, Municipal Black Country Core 162, ,960 14, Southern Black Country Core 194, ,335 18, Suburban Fringe 498, ,008 38, South Telford Estates 16,982 14,622 2, Rest of Telford 140, ,940 18, Source: Census of Population

62 4.0 REFERENCE AREA This section identifies the reference area and area of influence of the proposed HMRA Introduction In developing an understanding of the economic and social functions of the Black Country Telford area it is important to look at the interactions between the five authorities and the areas around them, and at their connectivity with these areas. One of the key features of housing markets is that interactions are not limited by local authority or other administrative boundaries and that analysis of markets needs to recognise and take into account interactions occurring across wider, sometimes sub-regional, areas. Large authorities such as Birmingham obviously tend to have wider and larger-scale connections than smaller authorities. This section looks in detail at the wider reference area within which the Black Country and Telford sit. It avoids the use of the terms housing market area or travel to work area for the following reasons: because it draws on a number of sources of data including both migration and travel to work information; because these terms carry with them the implication that it is feasible and sensible to identify contiguous and self-contained areas which do not overlap. Analysis of patterns of interactions suggests that the creation of self-contained areas requires making assumptions about threshold levels of interaction which are arbitrary and which more seriously can obscure some important interactions that do not fit into this pattern; and because the spatial formation of the study area does not readily lend itself to this approach. 4.1 Summary The analysis of migration and travel to work patterns in the Black Country and Telford identifies: a complex pattern of interactions between the authorities in the study area as would be expected from the complex pattern of employment centres and settlements across the area, overlain at a larger scale by the presence of the regional centre of Birmingham immediately to the east; a relatively high degree of self-containment for Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley, which primarily look outwards to their suburban and rural hinterlands rather than towards one another or towards Birmingham. There is, however, some degree of overlap in terms of travel to work between these districts; a different picture for Sandwell compared to the other Black Country boroughs - which being closer to Birmingham forms an important employment destination and supply of in-migrants to offset some of the loss of residents to the other Black Country districts. It also draws in workers from Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley, and even to a lesser extent from the west side of Birmingham. It also has its own smaller scale suburban and rural catchment to the south, based presumably on access via the M5 motorway; Links between the Black Country and Birmingham are significant, but fall off sharply to the west, suggesting that distance and the friction caused by congestion or simply the presence of 56

63 urban settlements and alternative employment opportunities is a significant constraint on travel in from the west. Hence the links with Sandwell and eastern parts of Walsall are the strongest, but in proportionate terms areas such as Bromsgrove or Lichfield have much closer links with Birmingham than Wolverhampton. Telford & Wrekin to the west has the strongest links with Wolverhampton, to which it is closest, and to a lesser extent with Dudley, at least in terms of travel to work. In migration terms, there are also links to Birmingham, even discounting for the latter s large population size. This suggests that there are links between the Black Country and Telford which extend both ways, stemming in the past from the history of Telford as a new town rehousing from the conurbation (but still reflected in migration patterns), and more recently from its role as a location for new housing which at least in part serves commuter as well as local employment markets; Overall the analysis suggests an area of influence for the Black Country which looks north, south and west from its boundaries rather than east, together with a link to Telford from the western part of the Black Country boroughs area. Figure 4.17 shows this area in detail. It is within this area that changes in the pattern of employment opportunities, new housing provision and other decisions affecting travel to work and population movement are most significant. 4.2 Migration This section looks at migration linkages between the HMRA local authorities and the wider area Net Migration Previous work 9 by CURS looked at data on migration trends and interactions for the Black Country and Telford drawing on 2001 Census data. Figure 4.1 shows net migration by district in 2002, together with the most significant net migration flows between districts in the Black Country/Telford and surrounding areas. All the Black Country districts except Wolverhampton experience net inflows from Birmingham, but these are not the main outflows from Birmingham, which has stronger north east-south west links with Bromsgrove and Tamworth, and with Solihull immediately to the east. Therefore, whilst the Black Country is physically linked to Birmingham, net movement is consistently out from Birmingham. This migration out-flow from Birmingham into the Black Country and to other areas in particular, represents the first stage in a cascade of movement outwards from the core to the periphery of the conurbation and beyond. This movement is generally sectoral, with moves from the south of Birmingham continuing outwards in this direction. This occurs because people tend to move in relatively short steps to areas which they are familiar with as a result of proximity, and to enable them to retain links with the area in which they previously lived, especially if their move is not associated with a change of employment. 9 Ed Ferrari and Philip Leather (2004) The Black Country and Telford Housing Market Research, CURS, University of Birmingham. 57

64 Sandwell is part of the core of the conurbation and has primary migration links with Walsall and Dudley - although some net movement by-passes the Black Country into Bromsgrove and South Staffordshire. Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley show a clearer pattern of sectoral outward movement: Dudley receives population from Birmingham and Sandwell but loses population through migration to the districts adjoining it to the west and south including Bridgnorth which is separated from it by an extension of South Staffordshire; For Walsall the main destinations are Lichfield, Cannock Chase, and South Staffordshire (probably those parts of the district adjoining its boundary); and For Wolverhampton, the main net movements are to South Staffordshire, Bridgnorth, and to Telford & Wrekin beyond. These longer distance moves to Telford are unusual and reflect the strength of Telford s attraction based on its role as a significant employment centre and the location of a large programme of new housing construction. Overall, Telford & Wrekin s strongest in-migration sources are from the West Midlands conurbation (including Birmingham as well as the Black Country boroughs) rather than other districts which physically surround it. However, Telford & Wrekin exports population to these surrounding areas. 58

65 Black Country Telford Housing Market Renewal Area Phase 1 Figure 4.1: Net migration and significant net flows, Stoke-on-Trent Wrex ham New castle-under-ly me Net migration 2002 As proportion of population Brox tow e Over 1% 0 to 1% -1 to 0% Under -1% Erew ash Derby East Staffordshire North Shropshire Arrows indicate net flows which represent 1% or more of the origin's total outflows Osw estry Stafford NET_PROP_OUT_ South Derby shire 7700 NW Leicestershire Telford and Wrekin Cannock Chase 3300 Lichfield Shrew sbury and Atcham Tamw orth Hinckley and Bosw orth North Warw ickshire Bridgnorth Sandw ell,200 11, Birmingham Dudley 66 South Shropshire Nuneaton and Bedw orth Walsall Wolv erhampton South Staffs Rugby Warw ick Redditch Bromsgrov e (Telford & Wrekin BC) Cov entry Wy re Forest Crown copyright. All rights reserved. LA0907L Solihull 11,, ,, Data source: NHSCR (migration), ONS mid-year estimates (population) Migration Linkages To summarise the links between the five authorities and their surroundings, the CURS work used the statistical technique of cluster analysis to identify the areas with which each authority demonstrated the strongest migrational linkages. This analysis looked at both inflows and outflows rather than net migration, and set these flows against the overall population of origin and destination authorities, so that the results would not be dominated by moves to and from Birmingham. It also took account of geographic distance, to offset the tendency of flows between adjacent areas to be greater than flows between those further apart. On the basis of this analysis, Table 4.1 below shows the most significant flows in absolute terms and in proportionate terms for each of the five study areas, and Figures 4.2 and 4.3 (to be provided) map the results for each authority, both in terms of a core suggested by strong absolute flows, and a periphery suggested by strong relative flows. 59

66 Table 4.1: Indicative areas of reference based on migration Study district Associated districts (indicative of average extent of HMA) Out flow In flow Net flow Aggregate flow Most significant proportional flows Persons % of population Telford and Wrekin North Shropshire Shrewsbury & Atcham Bridgnorth Wolverhampton Walsall Dudley South Staffordshire Walsall Wolverhampton Sandwell Birmingham Cannock Chase Lichfield South Staffordshire Dudley Sandwell Sandwell Walsall Dudley Birmingham Most significant absolute flows Persons Persons Telford and Wrekin Wolverhampton Birmingham Bridgnorth North Shropshire Shrewsbury & Atcham Wolverhampton Walsall Dudley South Staffordshire Walsall Wolverhampton Sandwell Birmingham Dudley Sandwell Sandwell Dudley Birmingham These figures show that: Telford & Wrekin has strong links with Shrewsbury, North Shropshire and Bridgnorth, but the largest absolute links are with Wolverhampton and Birmingham. This gives a fragmented overall pattern with migration skipping South Staffordshire and Bridgnorth. This is not unexpected, given the origin of Telford as a new town, and the good transport links via the M54 and M6; 60

67 Wolverhampton has a more conventional pattern of linkage with Walsall and South Staffordshire (absolute flows) and Walsall and Dudley (proportionate flows). These districts almost surround Wolverhampton. The notable feature is the absence of linkage with Sandwell and Birmingham; Walsall has a consistent picture in terms of both absolute and proportionate flows, with the strongest links to Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Birmingham. Links to surrounding districts outside the conurbation are present but less strong, probably because these authorities are smaller in size; Dudley, for which the picture is more surprising, shows strong links with only one authority, Sandwell. Areas to the west of Dudley outside the conurbation do not feature. This may be because Dudley s linkages with other districts within the Black Country (mainly in terms of inflows of population from them) are much stronger than the outflows to areas such as Wyre Forest, South Staffordshire, or rather than implying that there are no flows to these areas; and finally Sandwell demonstrates close links with Birmingham, Walsall and Dudley Migration-Based Reference Area Figures 4.2 to 4.7 shows the migration-based reference area derived by combining the areas which have close associations with the Black Country and Telford & Wrekin (shaded black) together with a secondary reference area (areas shaded grey). 61

68 Figure 4.2: Extent of migration associations for Telford Figure 4.3: Extent of migration associations for Wolverhampton Figure 4.4: Extent of migration associations for Walsall Figure 4.5: Extent of migration associations for Dudley Dudley 62

69 Figure 4.6: Extent of migration associations for Sandwell Figure 4.7: Combined migration association for Black Country and Telford 63

70 4.3 Travel to Work The previous CURS work was undertaken before 2001 Census origin-destination data became available. As part of the present study further analysis was undertaken of origin-destination data on travel to work to complement the picture produced on migration. Travel to work patterns are as significant as migration patterns in indicating areas of influence. They identify areas which have a strong economic linkage with major employment centres. In part they represent the outcome of past patterns of migration, though of course not all those travelling into a major employment centre are past migrants. They may represent the potential catchment area within which it would be possible to influence patterns of location behaviour and attract in migrants into closer proximity to major employment centres. Although in the case of large centres such as Birmingham, it would not be feasible for all those employed in the city to live within its boundaries. As a result, the analysis of travel to work patterns provides a complementary picture of the areas with which the Black Country and Telford have close economic and social linkages Context Most people who travel to work travel a relatively short distance. To set this in context: Only 29% of those in employment in 2001 in England and Wales with a fixed workplace in the UK travelled more than 10km to work. Nationally 24% of employed people lived and worked in the same ward in % lived and worked in the same local authority area. This leaves only 40% who travelled across a local authority boundary. Analysis of longer distance travel must therefore focus on the minority of all those in employment with a fixed workplace who travel longer distances. These tend, not surprisingly, to be people who are in more highly paid occupations. They are more able to afford higher travel costs and more highly constrained than other workers in terms of the choice of employment locations open to them Employment centres Travel to work is also influenced by the pattern of employment opportunities. In areas where there is one major employment concentration surrounded by a residential or rural hinterland, the pattern of travel is usually simple. Not surprisingly, the Black Country forms a complex mosaic of employment opportunities (Figure 4.8), which is in turn set within a wider regional/sub-regional picture dominated by the central area of Birmingham. The dominance of central Birmingham is clear, but there are also significant concentrations in the centres of Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Telford, in a number of subsidiary centres in these areas, and in a band extending from West Bromwich through the core of the Black Country towards Wolverhampton. 64

71 Figure 4.8: Main centres of employment in Black Country-Telford and environs Net Commuting Flows Table 4.2 shows details of employment and commuting at district level for the Black Country, Telford & Wrekin and Birmingham. These figures show that: Telford, Wolverhampton and Sandwell are net importers of labour; Walsall is in balance; and Dudley is a substantial exporter, mainly to Sandwell. Table 4.2: Residence, employment and commuting by district, 2001 Working in area Living and working in Commuting Commuting area out in % working % resident Ave in area workforce distance Net commuting commuting travelled to commuting in out work (km) Sandwell 120,276 63,156 50,406 57,120 6, Dudley 123,179 85,620 54,315 37,559-16, Walsall 104,685 64,142 41,488 40, Wolverhampton 104,433 60,865 34,061 43,568 9, Telford & Wrekin 79,840 59,211 15,169 20,629 5, South Staffordshire 30,977 17,152 35,275 13,825-21, Birmingham 450, ,219 78, ,498 83,

72 4.3.4 Commuting Patterns However these are net figures, hiding substantial inward and outward flows. Further analysis of inward and outward flows shows that: Telford is relatively self-contained, with about 20% of resident workers travelling out and a quarter of workers commuting in; At the other extreme, 44% of Sandwell s resident workforce commutes out and 47% of workers commute in; and Although Birmingham stands out in terms of total employment numbers, it is worth noting that the number of people working in the four Black Country Boroughs together is greater in total than the number working in Birmingham. The table also shows South Staffordshire, where 67% of the resident workforce commutes out. Although Birmingham has by far the largest level of inward commuting, this only represents just over a third of the workforce, because of the large number of people who both live and work in the authority s area Distance Travelled to Work Table 4.3 also shows the average distance travelled to work by the resident workforce in each district. This is significantly higher for Telford & Wrekin, because of the rural nature of the hinterland and the low density of Telford itself, and for South Staffordshire, because of the high incidence of outcommuting Travel to work patterns Table 4.3 below summarises levels of travel to work between selected districts in the Black Country Telford area. These show that: As would be expected levels of internal travel are far greater than travel between districts. (Significant flows between districts are highlighted in light blue); Flows into Birmingham dominate - with the main flows from Sandwell, Walsall and Dudley rather than Wolverhampton. (Note that the table does not show other districts such as Solihull or Lichfield which also provide large flows into Birmingham); There are also relatively large two way flows between Dudley and Sandwell (but not between these districts and Walsall); Wolverhampton s link to South Staffordshire stands out; and flows from Telford to the Black Country are generally small. 66

73 Table 4.3: Travel to work matrix by selected districts, Black Country Telford and environs Persons travelling from: Persons travelling to: Birmingham Dudley Sandwell Walsall Wolverhampton Telford S Staffs Birmingham Dudley Sandwell Walsall Wolverhampton Telford South Staffs Figures 4.9 to 4.13 show patterns of travel to work in Telford and each of the Black Country boroughs at ward level - expressed in terms of their relative significance to the originating areas rather than absolute numbers, which we would expect to be dominated by larger authorities. Each map shows the percentage of workers travelling to work in the district in question, banded to distinguish: Areas where 30% or more of all persons working work in the district Areas where 10%-30% work in the district Areas where 5%-10% work in the district Areas where 1-5% work in the district, and Areas where less than 1% work in the district. The figures show that: Telford and Wrekin has a wide travel to work area - with 5% or more of employed people in Shrewsbury and Atcham, North Shropshire, and Bridgnorth, as well as parts of Oswestry, South Shropshire, and Staffordshire commuting into the Borough for work. Furthermore, the Borough s travel to work area extends into Wolverhampton where up to 1% of employed people work in Telford and Wrekin; The Black Country boroughs display relatively tight travel to work areas, with only limited spill over from one to another and a tendency to expand outwards sectorally into surrounding areas where this is possible. South Staffordshire forms one of the most important sources of commuters into the Black Country: Dudley has the strongest travel to work linkages to the south and west - with particularly strong links with South Staffordshire - with 30% or more people in the southern extension of South Staffordshire working in Dudley; Walsall has the strongest travel to work linkages to the north and north west into South Staffordshire, Cannock Chase and Lichfield; 67

74 Wolverhampton has the strongest travel to work linkages to the north west - particularly with South Staffordshire; and Sandwell attracts significant numbers of workers from a more restricted area than the other Black Country boroughs, because it lacks the surrounding suburban or rural commuter areas which they have available. The Borough mainly attracts workers from Walsall and Dudley, in particular - with more limited travel into the Borough from Wolverhampton and Birmingham to the east. Figure 4.14 shows the travel to work area for Birmingham as a comparison. Not surprisingly Birmingham s travel to work area is much wider - with a clear north east-south west bias reflecting the similar bias in migration. Travel to Birmingham is more limited from the south east, where there are significant employment centres in Coventry, Warwick and Stratford, and especially to the north west, where the Black Country acts as a block to the growth of travel. This is likely to arise not just because of the existence of alternative employment opportunities but also because of the friction caused by urban areas in terms of travel times. Figure 4.15 shows the main areas of influence based on travel to work patterns summarised for each of the five authorities, together with the pattern for Birmingham 10. The map confirms the relative lack of overlap between the catchments of Birmingham on the one hand and the Black Country boroughs on the other, and the north east-south west bias of the Birmingham are of influence. Telford s area of influence does not overlap with Birmingham, Sandwell or Walsall, but there are substantial overlaps with Wolverhampton and Dudley, confirming the links between Telford and Wrekin and the western side of the Black Country. 10 The threshold used is that of 5% travel to each centre in other words within the lines on the map 5% or more of those travelling to work go to the relevant employment centre. This represents a minimum level of travel of about one eighth of the average proportion of non-local travel. 68

75 Figure 4.9: Area of influence: Telford & Wrekin 69

76 Figure 4.10 Area of influence: Dudley 70

77 Figure 4.11 Area of influence: Sandwell 71

78 Figure 4.12 Area of influence: Walsall 72

79 Figure 4.13 Area of influence: Wolverhampton 73

80 Figure 4.14 Area of influence: Birmingham 74

81 Figure 4.15: Summary of travel to work areas, Black Country, Telford and Birmingham 75

82 5.0 DRIVERS OF CHANGE 5.1 Introduction This section provides a provisional assessment of the drivers of housing market change for the proposed HMRA in terms of key regional, sub-regional and localised/neighbourhood trends. The analysis of drivers is important to understanding why the area and its wider sub-region has not performed well and whether this trajectory will continue. A more in-depth assessment of drivers will be undertaken as part of the work during Phase Two to develop the HMRA prospectus. 5.2 Summary The following key drivers of housing market change in the area have been identified: Economic Trends Key economic trends identified are: The industrialisation of the Black Country which has led to the development of a dispersed settlement pattern in the Black Country involving: housing located close to employment; a preponderance of high-density, poor quality private rented housing; development of low standard local authority housing concentrated in mass interwar housing estates (later transferred into low value owner-occupied stock); and poor quality environments offering limited amenities and features to retain aspirational group; The subsequent de-industrialisation and economic restructuring of the Black Country economy with a tendency for replacement by lower skill level employment opportunities leading to: decline of inner housing areas and estates in the Black Country with loss of economic function; emergence of vacancy rates in the social rented sector and private sector with out-migration by younger households combined with population ageing; emergence of poor quality, often stigmatised housing areas; a high private new build rate due to increasingly available land supply - for example on former industrial sites - particularly in the Black Country urban core; a prevalence of low income households across the traditional industrial housing areas of the Black Country; and a shift in the pattern of employment opportunities towards Dudley combined with a projected ongoing decline in Sandwell and Wolverhampton. 76

83 Forecast continuing major decline in manufacturing - in terms of output and employment - forecast for the Black Country - with the conurbation locked into a diverging trajectory from the rest of the region and also Birmingham due to its dependence on low-value and declining manufacturing sectors. At the same time, recent analysis of employment trends for the Black Country Study identifies that service sector employment in the Black Country is forecast to continue to grow and expected to replace most manufacturing job losses. Overall, the historical pattern of manufacturing industry in the Black Country has led to a pattern of high levels of social rented provision and lower value private housing, with considerable intermixture of dwellings and manufacturing industry, leading to poor and unattractive environments. The advent of new forms of economic activity such as distribution have not attracted new aspirational housing development, and the scale of dereliction and poor environments continue to work against this. The Black Country remains polycentric with an array of small local centres offering very limited amenities as well as an archaic road system. The fragmented pattern of residential and industrial land uses generates a high degree of movement and has led to significant traffic congestion. Extensive mixed uses also result in poor residential environments. The Spatial Framework being developed for the Black Country seeks to deliver a transformation in land use, the quality of the urban environment required to support investment in growth sectors and higher quality housing to attract more highly skilled workers. The sub-region has experienced a decentralisation of economic activities - including to the New Towns - with subsequent economic and employment growth in Telford. Telford s economy has performed well in regional terms and is identified in the Regional Spatial Strategy as a sub-regional focus for economic development. In particular, RPG identifies the Borough as a strategic focus for major retail, leisure and office developments. The Borough s own economic strategy - focused on seven target economic clusters - envisages expansion of value-added manufacturing and knowledge-based services, and an expanded workforce of 110,000 individuals by However, Telford s manufacturing base is vulnerable towards shifting manufacturing production (automotive and electronics) overseas, and the Borough has suffered a major slow down in inward investment to the Borough from a very high rate of attraction of 1,500 companies over 20 years. A key challenge in terms of housing market renewal is to harness the growth potential of Telford for the benefit of the sub-region Demographic Trends Key demographic trends identified are: Demographic growth in the 1950s and 60s, combined with aspirations towards independent living and slum clearance - leading to increased demand for local authority housing and planned decentralisation from the Black Country to peripheral Greenfield sites and New Towns (including Telford). 77

84 Selective out-migration from the Black Country and the unattractiveness of the residential offer (both the tenure and type of stock and the package of services and environments associated with the stock) is such that the area has lost, steadily and over a long period of time, a high proportion of those who have choice over their location. There has been significant population movement from the historic core of the Black Country to its suburban fringe and beyond this to rural districts as part of an overall process of long-term decentralisation of population from the Birmingham and Black Country conurbation. The Black Country has lost 4,000 population a year through outmigration over the last 15 years through: o o Decentralisation within the Black Country conurbation; and Decentralisation away from the conurbation (a hollowing out of metropolitan areas) into rural districts - particularly of households in the middle of the family cycle and more affluent households. This has contributed to population gains in Telford - in addition to working class and unemployed households moving out to the Borough s New Town estates. RPG targets for housing development seek to reverse the trend of decentralisation of population away from the Black Country. Demographic ageing - with a growth of population in the over-65 age group - as younger people leave the area and do not return after higher education because of the lack of employment opportunities and the poor environment. The Black Country has lost 4,000 population a year through out-migration over the last 15 years. A growing younger population particularly amongst black and minority ethnic communities in the Black Country, and the region s older industrial areas. Growth and/or dispersal of BME population - BME households were originally attracted to the Black Country by opportunities in manufacturing industry and the lower paid service sectors, but these communities have grown through natural change and further in-migration. The growth of BME populations and the advent of international migration are transforming the inner city markets of the Black Country. These groups are providing much of the household growth within the Black Country and their ability to migrate from their core areas is a major localised driver of change within the conurbation. In some communities, the need to provide new housing for expanding groups in housing need in tightly defined older terraced areas is a major issue. Growth in numbers of asylum seekers and refugees in the West Midlands - with the Black Country (Birmingham, Stoke and Coventry representing the main concentrations). This includes asylum seekers placed by NASS in the conurbation as well as significant numbers moving in from other UK dispersal areas. A recent report by CURS identifies an estimated 3,500 asylum seekers in the Black Country - with the most common group represented amongst asylum seekers to the region being single males aged under 35. Evidence suggests that asylum seekers tend to remain in the areas to which they were dispersed and prefer council housing in areas with more diverse populations and support services. This can create pressure on social housing with refugees tending to prefer areas diverse inner city areas where the predominant tenure is private terraced housing. 78

85 5.2.3 Social Trends Key social trends identified are: Changing family and household structures - encapsulated in reducing average household sizes, and resulting in a more rapid increase in household numbers (higher than the rate of demographic growth) and trend towards smaller households; Changing aspirations - rising aspirations, together with rising real incomes to enable aspirations to be met, are one of the most powerful factors influencing housing market change across the UK. Areas which have a housing stock more closely related to past rather than present or future economic trends are likely to suffer if they cannot meet modern expectations in terms of the quality of not just the housing stock but also of environments, public services such as schools and hospitals, and other services such as shopping and leisure facilities. Sound polarisation - as a result of these trends, employees and families with spending power also migrate out from less attractive areas. Higher income areas attract employment-generating activity associated with shopping, leisure and other activities, and this in turn gives these areas further momentum which less attractive areas lose out on. Households living in less attractive areas which experience an improvement in their conditions are in these circumstances more likely to relocate outside them in order to find housing that suits their aspirations Governance and Policy Drivers A range of policies can also be argued to have had an adverse impact on some housing markets: Fragmentation and change in the historical development of the Black Country local government structure - leading to fragmentation of the built environment and housing provision - including low standards of housing provision; Public sector-led decentralisation of local authority housing provision - driven by housing need - in the 1950s and 60s - leading to peripheral greenfield development, brownfield development and New Town developments. Right to Buy sales combined with clearance which has thinned out concentrations of social rented housing provision - leading to total tenure transformation of some areas (e.g. Bristnall in Sandwell) - and raising issues regarding the quality of the owner occupied stock and low demand with demographic ageing. Deregulation of private rented sector rents and the reduction of security of tenure in 1988 enables private rented provision to expand, although in some areas the scale of expansion, and the presence of poor quality landlords, has had adverse impacts on markets. Weak regional and more local planning frameworks and predict and provide planning techniques leading to increased greenfield housing development and leapfrogging over Green Belt boundaries; 79

86 Improvement of transport links perpetuating the decentralisation of higher income groups - facilitating higher levels of inward commuting rather than residency within the Black Country urban area. A noted failure to link housing regeneration with other programmes relating to services and the environment - undermining the effectiveness of some past investment (e.g. in the social rented sector) Micro-level Drivers A number of micro-level drivers of change at the local or neighbourhood level can be identified: Poor urban and housing design - impacting on the popularity and sustainability of many housing developments (e.g. tower blocks, deck-access estates, Radburn-style estates); Area stigma: areas with high concentrations of deprivation and problems with crime and antisocial behaviour also suffer from stigma. Despite considerable community cohesion in some neighbourhoods, this emerges as an important local driver. (e.g. particularly on the 1930s estates such as The Priory in Dudley). Environmental issues and crime. Market insularity - for example amongst Council tenants - particularly on some estates (e.g. 'The Priory' in Dudley, Tibbington in Tipton and the south Telford estates) leading to stable demand and areas with significant susceptibility to demographic decline. Lifecycle effects amongst tenants - seeking to move out to larger accommodation; Social pressures leading to more frequent movers amongst Council tenants. A combined effect of low levels of economic activity, poor housing and local environments, unstable communities and poorly performing public services leading to a spiral of decline. There is growing evidence that problems affecting housing markets combine to produce a downwards spiral of decline which is very hard to halt. The growth of private renting has already been highlighted as a factor which can accelerate decline. Some local authorities experiencing a lack of demand for their housing have also been obliged to seek new client groups and this has also led to further instability and decline. A finding of this study is that drivers commonly thought to affect single neighbourhoods such as stigma, crime and the operation of housing lettings system appear to be affecting individual Black Country towns Key Outcomes Key outcomes identified as a result of the drivers identified are: A declining core of the Black Country: This analysis shows a huge central zone with localities in the most deprived 10% or 20% nationally, around 566,000 people. The spatial extent and 80

87 fragmented nature of this central zone is significant. Here the historic pattern of low income housing and economic decline has led to a disproportionate concentration of certain types of households: young, single person and lone parent households. Demographically, there is a skew to people with health problems, pockets of ageing residents in poverty and for the most part, BME groups. Only in Wolverhampton is there a major concentration of students. This concentration of disadvantage and unstable communities therefore reflects the importance of the urban form as a driver (see section 4.3.1) which in turn defines its social function. Distinct sub-markets with specific characteristics and different trajectories. There is a particularly complicated northern core area of the Black Country with issues around older poor condition terraced housing and declining interwar local authority-built estates with social problems and a fragmented urban form around traditional industrial activity. This northern core straddles parts of Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley and requires intervention involving joint planning and delivery by the Black Country authorities. South Telford New Town estates (Woodside, Brookside and Sutton Hill) which are identified as displaying clear signs of market failure - including low demand, heavy stigma, abandonment, poor facilities and problems of unemployment and social deprivation. Key issues for these estates are the quality of the housing stock and estate infrastructure - described as being of questionable construction standard - and the fragmentation of property ownership - with marginal owneroccupation and private renting predominating. The problems inherent to these estates are such that a clearance programme on the New Town estates has started for the first time - with approximately 240 units being cleared in South Woodside. The longer-term future of these estates without intervention is problematic Future Trajectory Chelmer population forecasts undertaken for the Black Country (Mott McDonald, 2004) (see Annex A) suggest a reduction in population of 84,500 persons over the period , accompanied by a net loss of 2,400 households. Without fundamental change the Black Country - especially its core areas - will continue to fail to attract in-migrants with choice - except where there are special factors, such as the presence of BME communities. The nature of the housing stock has exercised a strong influence on the social and economic composition of the population. Unless the nature of the stock can be changed to provide a more attractive offer, measures to attract those with choice are unlikely to succeed. Demand for social rented housing may ebb and flow with changes in the price of housing relative to incomes, but in the long run it is declining inexorably. The popularity of some dwelling types may also vary with house prices, but again in the long run only dwellings which can fit with modern lifestyles and aspirations will prove attractive to those with choice. Put more simply, the present nature of the housing stock and the environments within which it is located will be a serious constraint on measures to attract more affluent and more highly skilled households or others who have the capacity to move to other areas which are perceived as more attractive. Even setting aside questions of preferences and the attractiveness of housing and the environment, buying a house in many parts of the Black Country does not make investment sense for 81

88 people with choice because of the low rate of capital appreciation that can be expected. Unless measures are taken to create a more attractive housing stock, measures to create more jobs or high quality jobs will be undermined by the housing market, or will lead to a greater demand for commuting from outside the area. A key objective must be to encourage appreciation of housing values through diversification of the stock, whilst maintaining access to purchase for first time buyers and low income groups. The impact of this would compound the challenge of creating a new economy for the Black Country based on knowledge industries and other high value added sectors. Within the regeneration debate there is a tendency to assume that economic change will determine the direction of housing market change. But more affluent households have the capacity to afford and cope with longer commuting journeys so that connections between place of work and place of residence are increasingly weak. Attracting jobs does not necessarily mean attracting residents. Two- or multi-earner households are also increasingly common and this further complicates the link between home and work and puts a premium on accessible locations, locations which are likely to remain attractive over various stages in the lifecycle, or those representing minimal risk in investment terms. Population loss from areas such as Pathfinders is thus associated with active housing choices and the willingness to contemplate longer journeys to work rather than the loss of employment or the nature of employment. Success in securing the development and sale of new build market housing in neighbourhoods previously considered unviable - such as on the Cape Hill brewery site in Smethwick - indicate potential for major housing market change in some areas 5.3 Regional Trends Regional Economic Trends Sustainable communities depend on a number of factors, including quality employment opportunities generating the jobs and higher incomes needed to support both home ownership and investment in the housing stock, including general repair and maintenance. Strong economies also breed confidence, helping to encourage both in-movers and resident retention, and supporting the range of services that are vital for balanced and sustainable communities. The success of housing market interventions in the Black Country Telford area is closely linked to the economic and labour market characteristics and trends of the region and how those trends impact on the Black Country Telford sub-region. Current work by ECOTEC reviewing the links between different economic drivers and the housing market (for the Regional Housing Board) highlights a growing fracture between a relatively buoyant southern and eastern area in the region, increasingly part of a wider South East of England economy, and the northern and western areas of the region where growth is less pronounced and where there has been population decline and a continued loss of manufacturing employment. 82

89 The location of the Black Country Telford sub-region firmly within the parts of the region experiencing lower rates of economic growth raises key issues for a housing market renewal area. Housing investments would need to go hand in hand with economic interventions, particularly those geared to higher value added economic activity, as well as environmental, transportation and other inter-related policy areas. In this respect current vehicles for policy intervention including the two Regeneration Zones and the High Technology Corridor have a crucial role to play. Overall Trends The West Midlands economy underwent a major relative decline in GDP compared to the UK average in the late 1970s and early 1980s - although it has since held its own but is not gaining 11. Although, as regards GVA per head, the disparity between the region and the UK average has widened (1989 to 2001) (see Table 5.1). GVA is a measure of the region s potential to re-invest in regional growth. Table 5.1: GVA per head GVA ( per head) 2001 Change from 1998 UK 14, % West Midlands 13, % Source: Office for National Statistics, Gross value added (GVA) and Gross Disposable Household Income by NUTS 1, 2 and 3 areas at current basic prices, 2002 As regards employment, figures show that the region experienced a 1.4% increase in employment between 1998 and 2002 compared to a GB average of 5%. Advantage West Midlands reports that in the absence of the Regional Economic Strategy the West Midlands will remain static and specifically that the Region will perform at or close to the UK average in Gross Value Added (GVA) and employment terms, resulting in relatively little net employment; and unemployment will rise. The West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy states that changes in the region s demography over the next few years will have huge implications for the region s employment base. It is projected that by 2010 more than 50% of the West Midlands workforce will be over the age of Manufacturing Trends A key issue for the region is the level of employment in manufacturing - with manufacturing still the largest contributor to regional GVA and employing over 20% of the region s workforce compared to just over 15% nationally. Regional productivity rates in the manufacturing sector are low by UK standards and even further behind many European countries. The State of the Region report (2004) highlights that the region ranked 7 th out of the nine English regions for expenditure on R&D in Manufacturing employment continues to decline, especially in value-added sectors and sectors facing low-cost overseas competition or over-capacity in international markets. A decrease of 103,000 jobs in manufacturing is predicted across the region a between 1999 and This will have a particular 11 West Midlands Regional Observatory (2004) State of the Region Report 12 AWM (2004) Regional Economic Strategy: 17 83

90 impact on the region s manufacturing centres including the Black Country Telford area, where manufacturing remains the largest employment sector - accounting for over a quarter of all jobs. Research by GHK in May concluded that manufacturing employment in the Black Country had declined from 40% of all employment to 24% in the last twenty years. The Black Country s manufacturing industry is expected to continue to evolve into a shrinking sector with projected reductions in both output and employment (see Table 5.2). Table 5.2: Change in Employment, Black Country, Actual Expected Differential Manufacturing Other Production Services TOTAL Source: Long-Term Economic Strategy for the Black Country, (May 2004), GHK: BC Research Database Figure 5.1 also demonstrates a gradual decline in manufacturing in Telford and Wrekin. Telford and Wrekin s manufacturing sector is projected to adjust with falls in employment but greater levels of productivity. Figure 5.1: Manufacturing Jobs, % of Total Black Country Birmingham Stoke on Trent Telford & Wrekin Service Sector Growth The region s service sector is growing - to replace manufacturing employment - but at a slow rate - and with a significant dependence on public sector growth (health and education in particular), which has a relatively lower share of GVA (State of the Region Report, 2004). A net increase of 34,000 jobs 13 GHK (2004) Long-Term Economic Strategy for the Black Country 84

91 - in particular in business and other services, distribution and transport, and other non-market services - is forecast by A key issue for the area will be its capacity to attract service sector growth with an overall shift in the locus of economic activity within the West Midlands from the conurbation towards the south east of the region. Employment trends for key growth sectors between 1998 and 2003 (Figures 5.2 and 5.3) show that: Telford and Wrekin, and Wolverhampton have experienced a substantial percentage increase in consumer services employment - including the renaissance of Wolverhampton City Centre - whilst the rest of the Black Country authorities have experienced a low to negative change in consumer services employment; Telford and Wrekin, Wolverhampton, Dudley - and in particular Walsall - have experienced growth in knowledge-based services employment (including the development of Brierley Hill), whilst Sandwell has experienced a substantial decrease. 85

92 Figure 5.2 % Change in Consumer Services Employment, Figure 5.3 % Change in Knowledge Based Employment,

93 Black Country Performance In terms of overall economic performance, the Black Country has experienced over-representation in weak UK sectors, at an estimated cost of 21,000 jobs, and slower employment growth compared to the rest of the UK. Research by GHK in May summarised past trends in the Black Country as showing a decline in employment of 11,000 jobs (2.6%) in the last 20 years. This downward trend is coupled with a decline in relative earnings and overall performance comparable to Birmingham and North Staffordshire. Actual performance in manufacturing has been far lower than anticipated and despite an increase in employment within the services sector this has been lower than anticipated. The present performance of the Black Country economy (GHK, 2004) can be summarised as: The Gross Value Added (contribution of GDP) of the economy is 14,000m (1.6% of UK); Gross Value Added per job is 88% of the UK average; GDP per head stands at 12, Employment rate (employed as % of working population ) of 76.3% compared with UK rate of 78.1%; Manufacturing is still the largest sector by value (26%) and employment (24%). Distribution is the second largest sector; Occupational structure shows significant under-representation of higher income grades; and Average earnings are 87% of the UK average. However, it should be noted - as shown in Figure 5.4 that Dudley has experienced a higher than average increase in employment since 1984 compared to the other Black Country Boroughs and Birmingham. In terms of unemployment trends over the past 20 years Figure 5.5 outlines claimant counts for the Black Country, West Midlands and UK from Both the Black Country and West Midlands at large show a similar trend to the rest of the UK. Key issues for the Black Country with regard to growth sector employment have been: The type of opportunities created, which in the case of the Black Country have tended to be lower skill level opportunities which have not attracted better paid, more highly qualified, and therefore more affluent workers to live in the area. This is reflected in the Black Country s low income levels; The proximity of the regional centre of Birmingham, which not only began with many advantages but has also undergone successful and continuing regeneration and expansion, not least through the presence of a strong higher education sector; and 14 GHK (2004) Long-Term Economic Strategy for the Black Country 15 Black Country Observatory Research Database (2004) State of the Sub-region

94 The development of better motorways and other access roads, which, whilst assisting in the attraction of new employment, have also facilitated higher levels of inward commuting from those living outside the Black Country in more attractive environments. Figure 5.4 Employee Jobs Index 1984= Dudley Sandwell Walsall Wolverhampton Black Country Birmingham Stoke on Trent Telford and Wrekin Source: ONS, NOMIS, Jan 2005 Figure 5.5 Claimant Count Unemployment, Black Country Index 1984=100 Dudley Sandw ell Walsall Wolverhampton W Mids R UK Year 88

95 Black Country Prospects A model has been developed for forecasting economic growth in the Black Country 16 which is consistent with UK macro and industrial forecasts and the West Midlands regional forecasts. Base forecasts which consider the most likely path for economies given current trends and a policy neutral environment - identify that the Black Country economy will lose 20,000 jobs over 30 years to This job loss is expected to be uneven between the Black Country authorities, with Dudley expected to experience a continued rise in employment but at a slower rate, Walsall expected to experience broadly stable employment, and Sandwell and Wolverhampton expected to experience job losses amounting to 10%. A sectoral analysis of these base projections (Table 5.3) identifies a projected continued rapid decline in manufacturing employment - although at a slightly slower rate than Birmingham. Most jobs lost from manufacturing are expected to be replaced from service sector employment. Table 5.3: Employment Prospects in the Black Country ( 000s) Current 2003 Baseline 2030 Employment Manufacturing Logistics & Distribution Retail Financial and Business Services (office) Public Administration (office) Personal Services Total (ex health, education, construction, transport) (-7%) Source: Regional Forecasts and Oxford Economic Forecasting, June 2004 (accessed via GHK (2004) Long- Term Economic and Employment Strategy for the Black Country: 5) Despite an overall projected loss of jobs, the Black Country is projected through the model to achieve a higher residence-based employment rate, on the basis of a projected higher rate of population decline amongst the working age population compared to the rate of employment decline. However, the occupational structure is projected to see a shift away from higher level occupations (managers and professionals) with the relative average wage gap between the Black Country and the UK average increasing (from 81% of the UK average in 2003 to 76% in 2030). Telford Performance Table 5.4 shows that Telford has performed well in regional terms and compared to the Black Country in employment terms. The Borough has also performed well in terms of median income levels and business starts, although the Borough has performed less well in other areas (e.g. skills levels). Furthermore, the Borough does not appear to have the economic base to support a growing population and rural hinterland, and is very exposed to reductions in foreign investment. 16 Regional Forecasts and Oxford Economic Forecasting, (June 2004) 'The Black Country Model and Economies for Economic Development' 89

96 A recent SWOT analysis carried out by SQW for the Borough of Telford and Wrekin in 2004 identified the following levels of performance 17 : 28% manufacturing (National average 14%, regional average 20%); 2.2b GVA; GDP per head of 14,843; 66.7% of the Borough s population in 2001 aged 15-64; Existing polymer engineering and ICT sector base; Low unemployment; A lack of affordable broadband connection in some industrial areas and a lack of Regional Selection Assistance Grants compared to Wales and the Black Country; and Existing competition from new regional employment sites, for example, the Wobaston Road 90 hectare employment park north of Wolverhampton 35% of people of working age have achieved NVQ Level 3 or above, compared to 42% nationally Telford Prospects A recent SWOT analysis undertaken for Telford & Wrekin (SQW, ) identifies economic projections 19 on the basis of continuing trends which indicate annual growth rates of 1.2% in employment (14,000 net jobs) and 3.4% in output between 2002 and However, the analysis also identifies the vulnerability of the Borough s economy - to central government policy change (with nearly half of the net jobs created coming from computing services believed to be largely driven by the expansion of EDS driven by changes to the Inland Revenue s business) and the trend towards shifting manufacturing production (automotive and electronics) overseas. The study also identifies a major slow down in inward investment to the Borough from a very high rate of attraction of 1,500 companies over 20 years. Whilst the Borough has excess supply of employment land, offers a good quality environment, low wages and good internal access, it is identified as struggling to retain competitive advantage for inward investment. This is linked to low unemployment, limited access to London and the national motorway network (M6 congestion), a lack of affordable broadband connection in some industrial areas and a lack of Regional Selective Assistance Grants compared to Wales and the Black Country. Competition from new regional employment sites elsewhere - particularly the Wobaston Road 90 hectare employment park north of Wolverhampton is also identified. A key issue for the south Telford estates is access to employment opportunities created, with the area relatively physically isolated from a concentration of employment growth areas to the north of Telford and relatively low skills levels amongst the local population. This analysis therefore, in summary, identifies that: 17 SQW (2004) SWOT Analysis for Telford and Wrekin Economic Development Strategy 18 SQW (2004) Telford & Wrekin Economic Development Strategy: SWOT Analysis 19 Cambridge Econometrics using the Local Economy Forecasting Model (LEFM) 90

97 In both the Black Country and Telford and Wrekin, public administration and distribution sectors are expected to expand with increases in both employment and output. Construction in both areas is stated as an adjusting employment sector with projected falls in employment but increasing output due to improvement in productivity levels. In the Black Country, manufacturing is expected to evolve into a shrinking sector with projected reductions in both output and employment, whilst manufacturing in Telford is projected to adjust with falls in employment but greater levels of productivity. In terms of detailed analyses the Black Country has been subject to more detailed scrutiny than Telford. The latter requires more extensive review. In some respects Telford has performed well in regional terms and well in comparison to the Black Country (e.g. business starts, median income levels) but in others the overall performance is poor (e.g. skills levels). Telford does not appear to have the economic base to support a growing population and rural hinterland. It is very exposed to reductions in foreign investment. BME Economies The research base for BME economies is underdeveloped. Evidence tends to be anecdotal. ECOTEC is currently reporting on the links between BME communities and housing on behalf of the Regional Housing Board but the analysis is regional. More work would be required within the Black Country Telford sub-region but the general pattern of enclosed economies, based on family ties and informal labour markets, resulting in more limited opportunities and lower incomes is probably applicable Regional Demographic Trends Decentralisation of population and economic activity away from the metropolitan centres of the region is of primary significance as a driver of market change over the last few decades (see Table 5.4). The decentralisation that has taken place within the conurbation away from the old industrial centres is discussed in Chapter 4.0. As well as decentralisation within the conurbation, there is an even greater zone of population growth circling the conurbation itself with significant population gains outwards from the Black Country in South Staffs and Telford and also north, east and south of Birmingham in areas of very high house prices (Figure 5.6). Overall the pattern of decentralisation is striking, with the influence of the motorway network an apparent factor. The highest overall rates of population increase have been in areas adjacent to the conurbation, rather than in more rural areas, reflecting the continuing economic pull of traditional employment centres, and the tendency of migrants to move short distances in order to sustain social and other networks, but the cumulative impact of this steady cascading outwards has been substantial. Thus during the period 1961 to 1971 all Black Country districts except Sandwell experienced population growth. Post 1971 all districts except Dudley have experienced population decline to the 91

98 extent that the population of the Black Country is now less than that in The population of Telford has more than doubled in this period. Table 5.4 presents these population figures. Table 5.4: Black Country and Telford Population Figures s Dudley Sandwell Walsall Wolverhampton Black Country Total 1,099 1,173 1,136 1,110 1,078 Telford & Wrekin HMRA Total 1,174 1,270 1,262 1,252 1,236 Source: Mott MacDonald, ONS and Telford & Wrekin Borough Council Taken together, this evidence suggests that the centre of gravity within the region is moving southwards and eastwards, reflecting the changing position of Birmingham and perhaps the economic pull of the South East region. The position of Staffordshire as an equivalent cold spot is also significant. With the exception of the planned New Town and post New Town development in Telford the sprawl of the Black Country has been restricted to the towns and smaller settlements of South Staffordshire district. The reasons for this include: Green Belt policies restricting new development to the west of the conurbation except in Telford; Relatively poor communications, restricting access from rural areas to the west into the core of the Black Country and Birmingham. This suggests that the construction of the western orbital route would accelerate the decentralisation of the Black Country in this direction; and A relative lack of demand from Black Country residents arising from prevailing low income levels. This has reduced the extent to which a high value rural hinterland has developed comparable to that which has developed to the north and south of Birmingham, for example. However, consideration of dwelling prices in Wyre Forest and Bridgnorth suggests that this is no longer a major constraint. 20 Black Country Study: Population and Household Scenario Forecasts , Graham Smith, Mott MacDonald, October

99 Figure 5.6: Population Change in West Midlands Region, Figure 5.7: Dwellings change in West Midlands Region,

100 5.3.3 Regional Social Trends The socio-economic and policy factors which have driven the process of population decentralisation within the region are complex and have varied between places and over time. Key social trends identified are as follows: Changing family and household structures, which are encapsulated in reducing average household size: early twentieth century living arrangements frequently involved extended families (multi-generational households) with children remaining in the family home until or even after marriage and grandparents or other relatives living with families, but trends over the last part of the century saw an increasing preference for couples to live alone, and for children to live independently from an earlier age. Other trends leading to more small households including increasing rates of divorce and separation, and the expansion of participation in higher education. These pressures led to a much more rapid increase in household numbers than population, and even to increases in household numbers where the population was in decline. The desire to live independently from parents and other relatives was facilitated by an increasing supply of housing and by greater economic prosperity. Changing preferences and aspirations: from the 1950s onwards changing lifestyles and aspirations, including increasing leisure time for hobbies including gardening, and awareness of the health and education problems caused by overcrowding also led to changes in housing demand, which were expressed in terms of preferences for larger dwellings, for gardens, indoor WC facilities, bathrooms, and fitted kitchens. In themselves these increased the overall demand for housing. In addition, better-paid households were increasingly able to afford to move out to more attractive suburban and rural areas in order to experience a better physical environment. Increasing levels of car ownership and improvements to roads enabled households to move out to suburban locations without leaving their existing employment. These trends developed gradually at first but accelerated in the 1990s as a result of a long period of economic prosperity, and increasing levels of female economic activity. Growing polarisation: the cumulative impact of selective migration left behind higher proportions of deprived and socially excluded households and levels of crime increased whilst at the same time the capacity of areas losing population to sustain high quality services declined, leading to a spiral of decline as more and more people were motivated to move to areas perceived to offer a better quality of life. In the 1990s, these trends have also become increasingly complex, with the development of specialist demand groups such as students, affluent young professionals, and affluent middle aged and older people. Some groups express preferences for urban rather than suburban or rural living, but typically these groups are attracted by specialised city centre facilities and environments, as distinct from inner city ones. Often they are attracted to new housing, or refurbished housing of innovative design, rather than to traditional terraced or semi-detached housing types. They are also as likely to be discouraged by poor environments and concentrations of crime or anti-social behaviour as other groups. The Black Country finds it hard to compete for these groups with Birmingham. 96

101 Public sector led decentralisation driven by housing need: in the 1950s and 60s, the demand for local authority housing was driven by the two post-war baby booms, aspirations towards independent living outlined above, and by the displacement of households as a result of the clearance of areas of high density slum housing. At this stage, local authority housing was still seen by many lower income households as lifetime tenure. The high level of demand for local authority housing led to provision on peripheral greenfield sites and brownfield sites created by slum clearance, but subsequently also to the development of new towns, and overspill estates around existing towns. In the West Midlands Redditch and Telford provide the main examples of such planned decentralisation, much of which took the form of social rented housing provided through New Town Development Corporations. Most New Town development in the 1960s and 70s was public sector led, but from 1980 onwards, this was increasingly replaced by private sector provision on land initially allocated for public housing for which the Development Corporations and their successors retained outstanding planning permissions (see Telford case study below). Private sector led decentralisation facilitated by predict and provide planning techniques: In addition to the planning of public sector provision, the planning system increasingly played a part in private sector provision through the development planning system, boosted by the advent of structure planning and the regional planning tier. Developments in household estimation techniques based on the projection of emerging trends towards greater household formation, and pressures from developers, led to the emergence of predict and provide based provision on greenfield sites. At the same time, a desire to contain the expansion of urban settlements led to the development of Greenbelt policies, which led new development to leapfrog such areas. Telford New Town: case study During the 1960s, Redditch s proximity to Birmingham conferred the advantages of a satellite town. However, Dawley s distance from the conurbation made the process of containing the population growth of Birmingham more difficult. In 1963, Dawley new town was intended to take 50,000 people from the conurbation and so to grow into a town of 70,000 or more. By 1968, Telford was intended to take an additional 50,000 and grow to 220,000 or more by However, by 1983, Telford s population was just under 108,000, and it was generally thought that it might not reach 120,000 by the time of the development corporation s demise, expected in the late 1980s 21. In terms of demography, the population of Telford stood at approximately 60,000 in In terms of geography, the landscape was approximately one-third built up, one-sixth derelict mining land and the remainder farmland

102 Overall, the development corporation inherited an area blighted by 250 years of mining and heavy industry. To a partial extent, it had eradicated the worst of the dereliction but this was coupled with a significant decline in the coal and iron industries. Consequently, the main legacy of the development corporation was one of high unemployment. 98

103 In terms of housing, new estates were quickly built at Brookside, Sutton Hill and Woodside, but to a defective Radburn design and of a poor construction standard by the development corporation. Later, the disposal policy of the corporation led to cut-price sales of properties to private landlords and level of owner occupation inconsistent with the quality of the stock (and its value) and income levels in the estates which are similar to those of many Black Country neighbourhoods. Overall the expansion of the town was coupled with transport improvements in road infrastructure. A key physical problem for Telford in the 1970s was a link to the country s motorway network. The completion of the M54 in 1983 is being an important contributing factor to Telford s continued growth. The 1980s witnessed an influx of population creating a demand for local amenities such as schools, housing and public services. Over time, larger houses have been built to attract and sustain affluent sections of the population. University provision has expanded and town facilities such as the Ice Rink, Racquet Centre, banks and other firms have firmly based themselves in Telford. 99

104 5.4 Sub-Regional Drivers This section identifies the key sub-regional drivers of housing market change in the area Industrialisation, De-Industrialisation and Changing Urban Form The Black Country and Telford are amongst the oldest industrial areas in the world. They have therefore experienced successive waves of economic development and restructuring over a period of 250 years, which has left its mark on the urban form. Only in the last half century have these market forces been significantly regulated by a land and town planning framework. Black Country The Black Country originated as a widespread sprawl of village-based cottage industries and later large-scale coalmining and heavy industry. Its development was intimately related to the growth of Birmingham as a major centre of manufacturing. The oldest areas of industrial activity in the Black Country were concerned with mining and associated extractive industries such as quarries; foundries, and wrought iron-work. Dozens of townships grew up around pits, quarries and specialist industries such as chain-making, locks and glass. These settlements were highly dispersed over an area of 136 square miles. The Black Country supplied the raw materials such as coal, clay and iron and also semifinished products for Birmingham s expanding metal trades. The construction of canals and later railways reflected this traffic and further shaped economic activity, especially the corridor between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, the Black Country s major settlement, 13 miles to the north-west. The mining and extractive industries had been under threat from the 1870s and largely disappeared in the depression of the 1930s. The South Staffordshire coalfield was also finally exhausted about this time. The parts of the Black Country most badly affected by the depression were the areas to the west of the Rowley Hills such as Dudley, Cradley Heath and Brierley Hill - with unemployment averaging 20% until the onset of the Second World War 23. As a result of these processes, by 1947, 57% of the total land area of the Black Country was either undeveloped, open spaces or derelict Conurbation: A Survey of Birmingham and the Black Country, West Midland Group on Post-war Reconstruction and Planning, Architectural Press, 1948, page Conurbation, op cit page

105 Parts of the Black Country benefited from the new economy of the interwar years. In Wolverhampton, the Goodyear tyre factory was established in 1927 and the arrival of Courthaulds in Dunstall Park provided 3,600 jobs by Unemployment in Smethwick was down to below 4% by 1937 with a strong engineering base. The considerable house-building of the inter-war years created the first suburban residential neighbourhoods, but even in the 1940s the Black Country was still a series of separate settlements of varying sizes. Figure 5.8 showing the residential areas conurbation at this time reveals this fragmented pattern clearly, with Birmingham standing out as a far more cohesive urban entity. It also shows the continued location of housing in the immediate town centres of Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley. Full employment enjoyed by the conurbation in the post-war period was based particularly on metal manufacturing and persisted until the early 1970s. Post-war residential development grew the total housing stock by 61% from 283,000 to 455,000 over 50 years to Essentially the Black Country expanded because it could due to plentiful land supply. Table 5.5 shows that outer Black Country districts such as Aldridge, Tettenhall and others such as Solihull and Sutton Coldfield around Birmingham were only 25% built-up. The scale of dereliction in the Black Country s core areas just after the war shown in Figure 5.9 is striking. Entire new residential neighbourhoods were developed in the post-war period in the western and northern fringes of the Black Country (see Figure 5.8 showing the historical pattern of residential development in the Black Country in five periods of the last century, namely 1900, 1923, 1938, 1974 and 2004). As a result, since the war the separate settlements have largely fused into what amounts to one single urban agglomeration, partly through infill and partly through peripheral growth. Within the Black Country core, many of these derelict sites were soon covered by early postwar housing developments, often with limited regard to issues of ground contamination or ground conditions. Peter Wood argued in 1975 that this infill produced no real improvement in the quality of the environment of the Black Country core: some of the worst damage to the area has been perpetuated in the last 30 years through open land unthinkingly built upon, shopping centres insensitively redeveloped, factories badly sited and new roads crudely aligned. Peter A Wood (1975), Industrial Britain: The West Midlands, David & Charles, page 19. However, areas to the west of the Rowley Hills away from the core, whilst in some cases facing issues of land contamination, nevertheless have had more than 70 years for a different land use to emerge. For example, industrial Stourbridge gave way to affluent modern suburban Stourbridge, with entirely new residential localities developed around the town in the boundaries of the old Stourbridge borough, but also places like Amblecote. 101

106 By the early 1970s the impact of deindustrialisation was beginning to be felt. When the giant Courthaulds works closed in 1971 unemployment was still only 2.1% in Wolverhampton. In the recession it lost 10,000 (18%) of its manufacturing jobs, with almost a fifth (19%) of the city s workforce unemployed by Waves of closures and job losses swept across the core of the Black Country. Derelict sites were often enormous such as the Bilston and Round Oak Dudley steelworks or Patent Shaft in Wednesbury. Economic change has therefore had a profound impact on the Black Country housing market. Pollution and unattractive environments associated with these industries (see Figures 5.10 and 5.11) prevented the development of high income housing areas across much of the Black Country, whilst low levels of pay and from the 1960s increasing levels of unemployment increased the demand for and provision of local authority housing, often built to relatively poor standards and with little investment in repair or upgrading to include modern facilities, and perpetuated much poorer conditions in the private rented sector. As the decline in traditional sectors increased, rising industrial dereliction compounded the unattractiveness of the area to higher income groups and emphasised the advantages of surrounding more rural areas. At the same time, the decline of manufacturing often led to long-term unemployment rather than to a move to find employment elsewhere, especially where those affected were older male employees. However, it contributed to out-migration by younger households and after a lag associated with the ageing of the population previously associated with manufacturing industry, began to feed through into vacancy rates in both the social rented sector and the private sector in the 1990s. The impact of past decline is still reflected in lower than average activity rates. Telford A similar process of restructuring occurred in Telford. Coalbrookdale, within what would become Telford, was a further cradle of industrialisation. From around 1750 coal and iron industries grew on a large scale and by 1806 the area had Britain s second largest ironworks. Rapid development of industrial settlements, mining and transport infrastructure such as canals, new roads and railways took place. However, the area s heavy industry began to decline in the same manner and at the same time as its Black Country counterpart. Paradoxically, although there were high levels of unemployment throughout the 1930s the east Shropshire (Coalbrookdale) coalfield continued to prosper into the 1940s and 1950s. Areas such as Wellington developed a shopping and service centre by the 1950s. Similarly, by 1900 Oakengates grew into a small, densely built up town. Conversely, the area of Dawley contained the greatest concentration of the declining basic industries resulting in a residual population and desolate landscape. Even by the late 1960s one-sixth of the development corporation area was derelict mining land. The post-war picture was similar in Telford to the Black Country, with employment growth evident in the vehicle components industry, metal and the manufacturing of electrical and 102

107 engineering goods. This growth was partly due to overall prosperity in the British car industry at the time and to firms locating within the area from the Black Country: Six (firms) in Dawley new town, employing 1,287 people in 1964, had come to Dawley or Madeley between 1941 and The new jobs, amounting to 28 per cent of the new town's 4,563 industrial jobs in 1964, were mainly women's; and it is noteworthy that the large pool of female labour available in the area, the result of the long preponderance of heavy industry, probably continued to help the new town to attract firms from the conurbation

108 Figure 5.8: Historical Pattern of Residential Areas in the Black Country

109 Table 5.5: Land Use Urban Density And Population Change Administrative Area Person s per Acre Built- Up (%) Derelict and not in use* (%) % Change in Population % Change in Households % Change in Dwellings County Boroughs: Birmingham Dudley Smethwick Walsall West Bromwich Wolverhampt on Municipal Boroughs and Urban Districts: Aldridge Amblecote Bilston Brierley Hill Coseley Darlaston Halesowen Oldbury Rowley Regis Sedgley Solihull Stourbridge Sutton Coldfield Tettenhall Tipton Wednesbury Wednesfield Willenhall Total Black Country and Birmingham Conurbation * *data for Black Country only Source: Conurbation op cit Tables VI, XXXIV and XXXV; Census of Population 1951 and

110 Figure 5.9: Derelict and Empty Land in the Black Country 1947 Source: Conurbation, op cit, p

111 Figure 5.10: Impact of Extractive Industries (1) Oldbury Area 1947 Source: Conurbation, opt cit, p164 Figure 5.12: Impact of Extractive Industries (2) Oldbury area 1947 Source: Conurbation, op cit, p

112 5.4.2 Governance and Municipalism An arguably overlooked factor in the shaping of the modern Black Country is the legacy of the fragmented local government structure of the conurbation that persisted into the 1970s. Birmingham grew outwards as a classic industrial city, administered by a single unitary authority and gradually absorbing adjacent areas such as Aston, Handsworth and Harborne. Planned infrastructure developments and radial transport routes mark it out today. However, the Black Country lacked this city effect. For most of the 20 th Century it was balkanised between the 21 local authority districts that existed in the Black Country prior to 1966 (see Figure 5.13). Four of these were like Birmingham - county boroughs and unitary councils enjoying the full range of the extensive local government functions of the period. These included the running of gas, water and electricity utilities, fire and even police watch committees. There were also 16 lesser authorities operating underneath the Staffordshire and Warwickshire county councils - with the urban districts largely restricted to housing, libraries and swimming baths. Some of these had rateable values per head only 40% of the conurbation average 26. One legacy of this was the poor quality of council housing built by districts such as Tipton. Although in some cases several authorities in combination were gradually exercising responsibilities, such as planning, fire and education, the overall picture was of fragmentation and even conflict. Tensions were compounded by administrative boundaries rendered bizarre by the changing built environment 27. Within this framework, there was certainly a competitive element of council house building between them - with new housing adding to the rateable value of the individual districts. Sandwell Council ultimately inherited nearly 60,000 council units from its six former districts. The local government reorganisations of 1966/74 eventually rationalised the Black Country s patchwork quilt through a two-tier metropolitan structure, although this removed the unitary status enjoyed by the county boroughs. However, the upper tier, the West Midlands county council, was abolished in 1986 leaving services like fire and police administered through joint structures, but with strategic planning an acknowledged casualty of the process. At the same time, the loss of the smaller authorities into larger structures without clear identities and perceived as rather remote, eroded traditional local political relations. The need to govern and fuse together different towns arguably led the new metropolitan districts to neglect the need to continue to manage them as the urban entities they still remained. It was now possible to countenance, for example, the A457 link road from Birmingham through to the M5, which nevertheless demolished half of Smethwick s high street and severed it from its hinterland (see Smethwick case study in section 5.4.5). This sense of remoteness still applies to Sandwell and helps the other districts. In the case of Sandwell, the Council has 26 Conurbation, op cit page The conurbation study noted that Perhaps the strangest boundary of all is that of Coseley, with repeated staggerings on the west, against Sedgley, and two pan-handles on the east; a large and almost derelict area sticking out for almost a mile between Bilston and Tipton, and a smaller one through the north of Bradley. Conurbation, op cit, page

113 actively developed six town committees with some devolution of powers and much better monitoring of town-wide impacts and patterns of change. Telford had an equally complicated provenance, based around a lattice of rural district councils with urban districts intermingling (see Figure 5.13). Coherence was brought to this through the development of a New Town structure, initially based on Dawley from In conclusion, the history of governance in the area has shaped the urban form and housing profile and contributed significantly to the current conditions of housing market weakness that exist. The development of new sub-regional policy frameworks - including the Black Country Spatial Framework, the Black Country Regeneration Zones, the Wolverhampton- Telford High Technology Corridor, and now the potential HMRA itself - offer new potential for strategic planning to address current inconsistencies and weaknesses left as legacies by previous fragmentation of governance structures. 109

114 Figure 5.13: Patchwork Quilt: Black Country & Telford Authorities,

115 Public Policy Planned decentralisation of activity Decline in traditional manufacturing industries was also accompanied by some decentralisation of industry and employment. In part this was linked to the planned decentralisation of population referred to above. The New Towns aimed not only to provide housing but also local employment for their residents. But in addition, changes in the nature of economic activity led to a demand for sites located near to transport routes (such as the motorways), greenfield sites which were easier and cheaper to develop, sites in more attractive areas to attract a better educated and more skilled workforce, and larger sites which were not readily available in the older urban core. This further reinforced trends in population decentralisation. Measures to regenerate the economy in the areas worst affected by manufacturing decline have had some impact. These measures had led to the creation of new employment in light manufacturing, distribution and some services. Organisations such as the Black Country Development Corporation (BCDC) built a new road infrastructure through the core of the conurbation and with it a ribbon of new business activity, as well as fostering new housing on former industrial sites. Figure 5.13 shows the decline in unemployment in the period. Council Housing Sales and Clearance The impact of two decades of sales of local authority stock and clearance of unpopular stock has been to dramatically thin out the concentrations of social rented housing. Although there is still a high level of social rented provision notably in the north of the Black Country, it is now intermixed with former council rented stock that is now owner occupied or privately rented. For example, the 1981/2001 comparison (see Figures 3.22 and 3.23) shows a near complete tenure transformation of the Bristnall area in Sandwell. This is explained by Figure 5.15 which illustrates the original footprint of the Bristnall area, a 1930s Smethwick overspill council estate now punctuated by extensive right to buy sales. Anecdotally, it is suggested that 60% of households receive means-tested benefits in former Right-To-Buys, partly due to ageing populations and a shift to private renting. Poor condition of RTB properties due to lack of maintenance is an increasing concern for the Black Country and Telford authorities. Figure 5.15 shows the dramatic tenure transformation achieved in the South Telford estates through the disposal policy of the New Town Development Corporation: Brookside was 94.3% social housing in 1981, now down to 32.1%; Woodside from 89.9% to 33.7%; Sutton Hill from 66.3% to 19%. It also shows the growing importance of the private rented sector, which caused owner occupation in South Telford to fall back in the 1990s. Private renting rose from 1.1% in 1981 to 4% in 1991 before surging to 13.4% in

116 Figure 5.13: Claimant Unemployment Rates in the Black Country 112

117 Figure 5.14: Land Ownership in Smethwick 2000 Key Council owned land Previously owned council land Source: Smethwick Masterplan 2000, Llewelyn Davies and CSR Partnership 113

118 Figure 5.15: Tenure Changes Tenure Change, South Telford Estates, (%) Tenure Change, Sutton Hill, (%) South Telford Estates Sutton Hill South Telford Estates Sutton Hill South Telford Estates Sutton Hill % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% South Telford Estates 81 South Telford Estates 91 South Telford Estates 01 Private Rented RSL Owner Occ % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Sutton Hill 81 Sutton Hill 91 Sutton Hill 01 Private Rented RSL Owner Occ Woodside 01 Tenure Change, Woodside, (%) Tenure Change, Madeley North, (%) Woodside Madeley North Woodside Madeley North % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Madeley North Woodside 81 Woodside 91 Woodside 01 Private Rented RSL Owner Occ % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Madeley North 81 Madeley North 91 Madeley North 01 Private Rented RSL Owner Occ Tenure Change, Brookside, (%) Brookside Brookside Brookside % 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Brookside 81 Brookside 91 Brookside 01 Private Rented RSL Owner Occ Private New Build In recent years, there has been a vigorous private new build market, reflecting the long-term trend, taking advantage of the plentiful land supply within the conurbation and continued household growth. 114

119 New build completions are evident across the whole of the Black Country in Table 5.6 based on data provided by the districts to Mott MacDonald 28 showing the significance of sites between above a selected threshold of 10 units. However, particular clustering of new build completions is evident in north Dudley, the Tipton area of Sandwell and the south-east of Wolverhampton. Relating this to housing submarkets, it is evident that new build completions have tended to be concentrated within the northern Black Country core. Outside of the Black Country a huge clustering of new build completions is also evident within central Birmingham. Table 5.7 presents the actual number of completions by district from 1996 to Actual completions in the Black Country reached a peak of 2,518 in 1997 and have continued to increase from Within the Black Country a decrease in actual completions is evident in Dudley from Conversely, an increase in actual completions is evident in Sandwell and Wolverhampton from Overall, between the period 1996 to 2003 there were 15,676 actual completions within the Black Country. This compares with a figure of 10,642 actual completions for the same period within Birmingham. Table 5.6: HMRA New Build Completions 1996 to 2003 Birmingham Solihu ll Sandwell Dudley Walsall Wolverhampton Black Country Telford & Wrekin TOTAL ( ) Source: Joint Metropolitan Districts Development Monitoring System, Mott MacDonald Table 5.7 below outlines the rate of actual completions on a per 1,000 dwellings basis. The average rate of actual completions per 1000 dwellings in the Black Country from 1996 to 2003 was 4.3 per Specifically, Dudley and Sandwell had a higher average rate per 1000 compared with the Black Country as a whole (4.5 and 5.6, respectively). Conversely, both Wolverhampton and Walsall experienced much lower average rates of actual completions per 1000 for the same period (2.7 and 0.4, respectively). In terms of the rate of completions per 1000 for both Birmingham and Sandwell, it is clearly evident that there has been a consistently higher rate of actual completions in Sandwell compared to Birmingham from 1988 to The Joint Metropolitan Districts Development Monitoring System. 115

120 Some 5,091 units were built in Telford between 1996 and This is equivalent to an annual average of 13.2 for 1,000 dwellings compared to an annual average of 4.3 completions in the Black Country and 3.3 completions in Birmingham over a similar period. Table 5.7: HMRA Completion Rates (000s) Birmingham Sandwell Dudley Walsall Wolverhampton Black Telford & Country Wrekin Average annual rate per 1000, ( ) Source: Joint Metropolitan Districts Development Monitoring System, Mott MacDonald Table 5.8 utilises available information on the planning pipeline supplied by other districts to Mott MacDonald. The pipeline data is land identified by individual local authorities as being available for housing development as at 1st April 2004 and includes both land with and without planning permission and includes dwellings under construction. The site-specific pipeline data does not include by definition unidentified housing land required to meet RPG targets i.e. unidentified windfalls and new development allocations. The total pipeline in the Black Country on this basis stands at 8,064. Dudley has the lowest total at 972. Wolverhampton has the highest number with 3,146 dominated by the huge 1,300 Bilston Urban Village Figure 5.17 shows the sites with remaining capacity above 10 units. It suggests that the bulk of the pipeline is confined to Birmingham city centre, a huge site in Bilston and a sprinkling in the town centres and core towns, with little in the fringe reflecting the established nature of these localities. Table 5.8: Black Country Pipeline at

121 Table 3 Total pipeline at 2004* Private properties Birmingham 11,393 10,408 Solihull 2,366 2,115 Sandwell 2,692 2,061 Dudley Walsall 2,122 1,885 Wolverhampton 3,216 3,146 Black Country 9,022 8,064 * N.B. Proportion already built Source: Joint Metropolitan Districts Development Monitoring System, Mott MacDonald The market for new build An understanding of the impact of the recent private sector new build on the operation of the wider housing market in Sandwell was the key objective of a seminal research study by CSR in Sandwell in The key finding of this survey of new build sites in Tipton was the attraction of employed, often two income families moving into the Borough to these homes. More than a quarter (28%) moved from outside the Black Country. Most of this group was from Birmingham (17%) but this still leaves 11% inflow to the conurbation The private new build was concluded to be a success on its own terms and had contributed to the economic regeneration of the Borough. It helped diversify the housing tenure and type mix in the south of Tipton and provided an opportunity for BME buyers to move outside established enclaves in this part of the Borough. The longer-term concern, however, was that many residents of the new estates would move out of the Borough and even the Black Country in due course. Less than half (48%) wanted to stay in the Black Country and only a further 12% in Birmingham. Nearly a quarter (23%) wanted to leave the conurbation for a market town or rural location and 12% wanted to leave the West Midlands region. A critical factor here is the poor environment of the Borough and general quality of life issues. 117

122 Figure 5.16: Private New Build in the Black Country Figure 5.17: Pipeline Sites available for housing, April

123 Demographic Trends Historic Trends Decentralisation of population has been a key feature of the Black Country and surrounding rural areas since the 1950s. Figure 5.18 shows net population change over the period in the area. Figure 5.20 identifies the net change in the housing stock in the conurbation and Telford. The populations of the inner urban centres, for example, the old County Boroughs of Smethwick, West Bromwich, Walsall and Dudley show significant decline (Figure 5.19). The insets (Figures 5.19 and 5.22) examine the pattern of decline in population (-41%) and dwellings (-14%) in Smethwick and also see the Smethwick case study in section to illustrate localised drivers in the Black Country. As noted above, this is due to the post-war suburbanisation around the fringe of the conurbation. In contrast Birmingham s stock grew by only 24% in the same period. This was certainly a factor in the Black Country managing a better performance than Birmingham in retaining population during the last half century. The combined population of Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield (absorbed by Birmingham in 1974) fell by 18% from 1951 and 2001, compared to a rise of 5% in the Black Country although this overall population growth specifically occurred in the period. Additionally, in the Black Country, migration was initially to suburban districts reflecting the continuing industrial culture of living close to work. In Birmingham there was a greater tendency towards longer-range moves out of the conurbation 29. Overall population growth in the Black Country occurred mainly in the early post-war period. Nevertheless, the falls in population in parts of the core of the Black Country have occurred alongside a collapse in the mixed-use environment and the emergence of low demand in the social rented sector, most spectacularly in Smethwick but also in parts of Wolverhampton. The core has been hollowed out and this process can be expected to continue. Figures for Telford show a high rate of growth over the period 1951 to of between 100% and 249% change in most parts of Telford. 29 The environment of the Black Country provided no alternative to migrants from Birmingham s inner core and there was not significant movement from Birmingham to the Black Country in this period. However, analysis undertaken by CURS/CSR of 2001 census migration data alongside a survey of new build purchasers for the Urban Living HMR pathfinder shows recent movement from Birmingham to Sandwell, but not vice versa. This inflow, mainly to the Smethwick area, is largely from BME groups. 119

124 Figure 5.18: Population Change in West Midlands Conurbation and Telford & Wrekin, , by 1951 Local Authority Area Figure 5.19: Population Change in Smethwick Wards Figure 5.20: Dwellings Change in West Midlands Conurbation and Telford & Wrekin, , by 1951 Local Authority Area Figure 5.21: Dwellings Change in Smethwick Wards

125 Population Projections Demographic projections for the Black Country, Telford sub-region suggest a two speed subregion. According to ONS forecasts for 2021: the Black Country population, as part of the Birmingham/Black Country sub-region, will remain static (less than 1% population growth, against a regional forecast of 2% and a national (UK) figure of 7%; whilst Telford s population, in contrast, is forecast to grow by 9% - the highest level in the West Midlands region. Whilst the Black Country growth is low, it follows population loss in Sandwell (-8%), Wolverhampton (-7.1%), and Walsall (-5.6%) for the period and would require a reversal of historic trends. All of these figures are higher than the percentage population loss with the Stoke-on-Trent urban area (5.5%), where population decline has been one of the key arguments in the justification of a housing market renewal area, Only Dudley of the four Black Country districts experienced population growth during this period (1.2%). The Black Country Study In developing a Spatial Framework for translating the aspirations set out in the Black Country Vision into a preferred land use and transportation structure, a number of household growth scenarios have been developed and tested 30 using the Chelmer Population and Household Model (CPHM) 31 Mott MacDonald 32. The forecasts are calculated for each of the Black Country districts and in total, and incorporate latest ONS population total estimates and data on mortality, fertility and marital status, etc. They test the impact on population of planned (through RPG/RSS) house-building and clearance totals and the resulting change in the housing stock over the next 20 years (+45,000 units) and 30 years (+73,000). The forecasts are presented in Annex A. The analysis concludes that if these levels of activity did occur, and for housing void levels to remain constant, the historic pattern of out-migration would need to be significantly reversed. A shift to an annual gain of 3,200 in the period compared to the most recent loss of 30 Four scenario projections have been carried out in line with the original Black Country Terms of Reference Spatial Framework Brief to inform discussion and a final set of three scenario projections were then developed further to provide the demographic background to underpin more detailed spatial planning work on prospects and aspirations for economic growth and the land use and transport implications. 31 This is a cohort survival model developed and enhanced over many years by Anglia Polytechnic University, used by the majority of local authorities in the UK and has been tested many times through Structure Plans, Unitary Development Plans, Regional and sub-regional studies by both local authorities and the private sector including the House Builders Federation. 32 Black Country Study: Population and Household Scenario Forecasts , Graham Smith, Mott MacDonald, October

126 4,200 p.a. is needed. Indeed the gap between the trend line and an extension of RPG over the full 30-year period to 2031 is 209,000 population and 74,000 households. This figure should be seen in the context of ambitious Thames Gateway plans for circa 90,000 new properties and the Merseyside HMR Pathfinder plans for an extra 50,000 homes. In contrast, the successful application of RPG to Telford would result in a population increase of 49,500 to 2031 compared to the existing trend where 45,900 could be expected. However, this needs net inflow of population to rise to around 950 per annum compared to 700 now. Whilst this shift is relatively small it would be happening at the same time as the Black Country needing inflow of 3,200 p.a. compared to 4,200 outflow now. A key issue for housing market renewal will be the management of population growth in the sub-region to ensure that demographic growth targets for the Black Country can be met. Given the consistent loss of population in the Black Country over recent decades (including even Dudley since 1991) which is based in part on a remarkably stable level of migration) further decline could be confidently expected. It shows the challenge posed by the RPG levels of new build within the conurbation alongside the needs of Telford and other urban areas. Urban renaissance in the Black Country requires the need to develop a higher quality stock to retain and indeed attract aspirational groups to the conurbation. The trend scenario anticipates only modest household growth in the next two decades of the 30-year planning period and decline thereafter. Strong net growth in the housing stock alongside probably modest household growth would be likely to increase void rates above current levels. This suggests that currently planned clearance rates would need to be increased - if the reversal of migration does not occur sufficiently - in order to maintain the necessary replacement of aspirational housing and to hold existing void rates. The ageing of the population and other changes such as the decline of families and the growth of single person and sharing households has considerable implications over time for changing needs and aspirations and therefore housing conversions and new build designs. BME Groups and International Migration The core Black Country areas and Birmingham have significant and growing BME communities. These communities developed throughout the Post-War period. Male immigrants from BME groups were initially attracted to Birmingham and the Black Country by employment opportunities in manufacturing industry, and those who stayed were subsequently joined by family and relatives. These communities initially established themselves in inner city locations where privately rented housing and low cost home ownership were available, in part because of the changing aspirations of the white population. Continuing inflow and higher birth-rates have dramatically expanded these original communities, and they form the majority of the population in the inner cities of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Sandwell - and constitute more than 20% in a further band of neighbourhoods surrounding them. Figures 5.22 and 5.23 (and Table 5.9) show the proportion of BME population in the Black Country and inner city Birmingham in 1991 and Considerable growth is apparent. 122

127 Table 5.9: BME Population as % of Total Population, Census 2001 Number % Birmingham 289, Coventry 48, Dudley 19, Sandwell 57, Solihull 10, Stoke 12, Telford 8, Walsall 43, Wolverhampton 52, The Black Country picture cannot be seen in isolation from Birmingham, which has a large Pakistani population to the south and east of the city centre. There is a large Black community in social housing areas on the fringes of the city centre and to the north in the highly diverse Handsworth area. Figure 5.24 shows this for Wolverhampton and to some extent Sandwell have very large Indian communities. The main concentrations of Pakistani residents live in Walsall s inner city, Dudley Town Centre and Tipton and the Lye area. There are no predominantly Pakistani or Bangladeshi localities in Wolverhampton. Smethwick has probably the most diverse BME profile within the Black Country. As a result of low incomes and a preference or need to remain within established communities, most BME groups have remained relatively concentrated in certain areas, but there have been some gradual shifts in population over time. Figure 5.25 enables comparison with Some caution should be exercised since these show preponderance not actual population totals. 33 Indian households in particular have dispersed into both affluent and poorer areas, as can be seen in Wolverhampton and Walsall. In contrast Pakistani and Bangladeshi households have remained highly concentrated. The apparent divergence of Indian and Pakistani groups may be driven more by economic than cultural factors. Areas such as Handsworth, Smethwick and Whitmore Reans have become much more diverse. This partly reflects continued international migration but also the rise in mixed-race populations. BME communities of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black ethnic origin have had a major impact on the Black Country housing market over the last three decades and these communities are expanding more rapidly than the white population as a result of a youthful age profile, continuing in migration from established communities and the advent of new communities in recent years. 33 Figure 5.48 shows the numerically predominant minority ethnic group in localities where the overall BME population is more than 20%. In areas above this threshold a particular group is identified where it comprises more than 50% of the BME total (rather than more than 50% of the entire population which includes white groups). Where no single ethnic group is numerically predominant these are shown as ethnically mixed areas and there are indicated by hatching on the map. Importantly, this measures preponderance not intensity within residential areas. For example, the Black population of inner Birmingham is concentrated in the high density flats/maisonettes of Lea Bank etc. The footprint of these localities is small particularly when mapped at this scale. 123

128 In many respects, these communities can be said to have sustained the areas in which they are now located, which otherwise might have been subject to lower levels of demand. Without the presence of these groups, problems of vacancies would be much more severe than they are at present. They represent perhaps the best opportunity for creating or retaining sustainable communities in parts of the Black Country in the future. However, the impact of different BME communities on neighbourhood change is a complex issue, and the presence and expansion of BME communities has also been a factor contributing to the out movement of some white households as a result of racial prejudice, a phenomenon referred to as white flight. National house condition surveys have shown that BME households typically experience poorer housing conditions than white households, and are especially likely to experience problems of overcrowding. There is a need to clarify the future intentions, aspiration and needs of these communities and to assess the implications for housing in the area. Do different BME communities intend, for example, to remain in the area, or are they likely to seek better quality housing elsewhere, and if so, what might persuade them to remain in the area? 124

129 Figure 5.22: % Population BME, by 2001 Output Area Figure 5.23: % Population BME, by 1991 Enumeration District 125

130 Figure 5.24: Predominant BME Group, by 2001 Output Area Figure 5.25: Predominant BME Group, by 1991 Enumeration 126

131 Asylum Seekers and Refugees The last five years, following the establishment of NASS, has seen significant number of asylum seekers placed in the West Midlands conurbation and many asylum seekers who have received leave to remain in the UK have remained living in the region. There is also evidence to suggest that significant numbers of new refugees from other UK dispersal areas are moving into the West Midlands. The recent report by CURS for the West Midlands Regional Housing Strategy and Spatial Strategy revealed a number of characteristics of the regional asylum seeker population: A total of 9604 asylum seekers were identified as currently living in the West Midlands with the vast majority of these individuals being placed in the central sub-region. Analysis of NASS data indicates that the majority of asylum seekers placed in the region are aged under 35 (76.6%) with the largest proportion being aged between 25 and 34. Some 72% of asylum seekers are male and 28% female. The largest ethnic group are Iraqis (19.9%) followed by Africans (19.4%), Iranians (12.7%) and Afghanis (10.9%). The majority of NASS applicants were singles (74.34%), 8.43% were couples and 17.16% were families. 34 The biggest populations of asylum seekers are located in Birmingham (3792), Sandwell (1354), Coventry (1225), Wolverhampton (936), Stoke (731), Dudley (711 and Walsall (552). Figures 5.26 and 5.27 show locations of asylum seekers and refugees across the West Midlands region. It can be seen that the greatest proportions of asylum seekers are concentrated in small geographical areas. Estimates carried out by CURS suggest that there are currently (end 2004) 44,260 refugees in the West Midlands region and this will increase to 69,865 by the end of In Birmingham the highest numbers of refuges are residing in Soho, Nechells, Sparkbrook, Handsworth and Small Heath. In Coventry the highest proportions are in Henley, Binley and Willenhall. In Wolverhampton the highest numbers are found in St Peter s, Graisley and Heath Town. Age structures of refugees tend to be slightly older than asylum seekers although the majority (62.7%) are still aged below 34. Information on the ethnicity of refugees suggests that the largest group are Africans (30.2%) by Iraqis (23.3%), others (13.7%) and Somalis (13.5). Overall, data suggests that refugees are more likely to be living as families than asylum seekers This would go some way towards explaining the predominance of Africans who have a tendency for larger family structures. However, the picture may be skewed by the fact that much of the available data is derived from social housing databases whose priority housing policies would tend to favour families above couples and single people. The high concentrations of asylum seekers and refugees in parts of the Black Country pose two questions: Where will the future demand for this housing come from when asylum seekers leave the country or are given permission to stay permanently as refugees? 34 Phillimore, J (2005) West Midlands Regional Housing Strategy; West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy; Shared Evidence Base; Asylum Seekers and Refugees, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, The University of Birmingham 127

132 Will those who stay seek to remain in the area, or to move elsewhere? This will depend not just on the availability of housing and the quality (or otherwise) of the housing stock, but also on the pattern of communities and the availability and nature of economic opportunities. Research for the Learning and Skills Councils for Birmingham and Solihull and Coventry and Warwickshire and the Urban Living Pathfinder reveals some insights into the areas that asylum seekers and refugees aspire to live in. The most popular areas tend to be inner urban neighbourhoods with already established diverse, multi-cultural communities. There is a general tendency for Asylum Seekers to wish to remain in the area where they were dispersed once they receive leave to remain, particularly if a large number of asylum seekers from the same country are placed in the same area. Aspirations will be likely to change over time but initially, due in large part to a lack of knowledge about other areas of the region, refugees typically remain in the neighbourhoods where they were placed as asylum seekers - A household survey recently carried out in the Black Country (Goodson and Phillimore 2005) found that 79% of refugee respondents planned to remain within the Black Country. There is also some, mainly anecdotal, evidence to suggest that some asylum seekers placed in areas such as Stoke, Dudley and Walsall tend to move into Birmingham, Sandwell (in particular Smethwick), Wolverhampton and Coventry due to there being more diverse populations and better developed support services available in the larger cities. The Urban Living HMRA and Black Country research has highlighted tenure and property preferences prevalent amongst refugees living in the region as well as the types of facilities they are seeking. In relation to tenure preferences, facilities and property types, a number of key issues arise from the findings of these studies: Council housing is the preferred tenure choice. However, refugees are commonly very unclear about allocations processes. This tenure preference, given that most of the areas popular with refuges do not have a surplus of social housing is likely to increasingly present significant challenges to local authorities; Refugees have limited knowledge about RSL housing; Good quality transport infrastructure is a key priority to enable access to most facilities and services; Equally, access to a GP, often an issue for refugees, was highlighted as being a key issue; Self sufficiency is regarded by most as being highly important. Hence, jobs and training that could lead to employment are critical; Refugees were typically looking for safe, self-contained accommodation. 128

133

134 Figure 5.26: Location of asylum seekers across the West Midlands 5.27: Location of refugees living in the West Midlands Figure 5.5 Localised/Neighbourhood drivers This section identifies localised or neighbourhood drivers of housing market change in the Black Country Introduction There are particular micro-level drivers affecting the performance of clusters of neighbourhoods in the Black Country & Telford. The research literature, for example the DETR 2000 study of low demand housing and unpopular neighbourhoods, confirmed by research undertaken for Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders (for example, CSR s 2004 North Staffordshire housing market assessment) points to a fairly consistent pattern of causal factors. These include: 126

135 Stigma and poor perception of area, often related to concentrated poverty and/or crime High levels of crime and anti-social behaviour Unpopular dwelling types Design features of dwellings, blocks or estates Condition of dwellings, defects etc Quality and level of maintenance of local environment Inaccessible location (e.g. peripheral estate with limited bus services) Limited or declining local shops and businesses Limited, declining or poor quality local public services, especially schools; and/or constraints on choice for BME groups, associated with potential harassment. In many instances, there will be several causal factors at work at the same time. Also, some of these factors may be associated with low demand as a consequence as well as a cause. In other words, there can be a self-reinforcing spiral involving low demand and particular factors like crime. Previous housing market research undertaken by CSR Partnership and CURS for Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley in indicated that these issues particularly affect the social rented sector in the Black Country Housing Design and mixed-use environments The legacy of poor urban design practice in the Black Country and South Telford continuing into the post-war period has impacted greatly on the popularity and sustainability of many housing developments. The problems include: Tower blocks in exposed or poorly-landscaped open areas; Deck-access estates with elevated walkways, blind alleys, and dangerous pedestrian routes; Radburn-style estates with lack of secure garden spaces, narrow footpaths thread between back gardens and exposed garage areas; Other estates where car parking is remote or hidden, or where a sense of private, defensible space is diminished. Introverted designs with limited access to estates which also restrict internal movement Academic research from Australia (Judd et al, 2002 and 2003) has demonstrated a causal relationship between the Radburn design and crime and antisocial behaviour. The article about Brookside reproduced in section to illustrate area stigma highlights its design flaws: a maze making it a police-free playground for ne er-do-wells. Figure 5.28 show an extract from the Woodside masterplan underlining its tight layout and Figure 5.29 show the garages and general unkempt appearance. The high-rise blocks and flats/maisonettes have been particularly targeted for clearance but still characterise the inner city areas of Wolverhampton (Heath Town, Graiseley Flats etc.) 127

136 and also parts of Sandwell. Figure 5.31 shows the Galton Village estate in Smethwick under construction in 1969 and Figure 5.31 shows conditions before the major estate action scheme of the 1990s. 128

137 Figure 5.28: Woodside Masterplan Figure 5.29: Woodside Estate Source: Woodside Masterplan Telford & Wrekin Borough Council Source: Inside Housing 9 July

138 Figure 5.30: Galton Village Under Construction circa 1969 Figure 5.31: Galton Village Prior to Estate Action Programme, early 1990s Source: Joe Russell/Alton Douglas, Joe Russell s Smethwick, 1987 Source: Brendan Nevin (Personal Collection) 130

139 5.5.3 Area Stigma There is clear evidence of a market hierarchy or pecking order of neighbourhoods within the Black Country. Some areas have become heavily stigmatised. Importantly, this affects the viewpoints of residents within such neighbourhoods as well as wider communities. Unpopular areas experience population instability and population loss as people vote with their feet. Such stigma reflects actual conditions and then amplifies them and entrenches them. One of the manifestations is the estates of fear stories continually applied to certain neighbourhoods in the local press. It also hampers attempts to regenerate them. 35 Figure 5.32 shows an old article about Galton Village in Smethwick 36 and a more recent article about Brookside in South Telford estates. As part of market studies conducted by CSR and CURS in , in each of the three districts we surveyed people on the waiting list for council accommodation and asked them which areas they would consider or reject living in. Figure 5.34 summarises the position in terms of a net rating: In Wolverhampton, Heath Town a 1960s estate of flats/maisonettes has a minus 42 point score. The position is also stark for three 1930s estates, the Lunt (-28%), Scotlands (-36%) and adjacent Low Hill (-26%); In Dudley, Wren s Nest scores -32%, Kate s Hill 14% and Priory -12%. All three of these are 1930s estates; and In Sandwell, the Smethwick area and the giant 30s Friar Park estate (-15%) fare badly. In Sandwell, a parallel survey of private renters pointed unerringly to the same position, with -6% for Cape Hill and 9% for Friar Park. Not surprisingly there is a strong relationship between these views and recorded applications and transfer requests. Thus in Dudley in 2001 the waiting list manifested itself in just 17 preferences for Tanhouse, 27 for Chapel Street (both estates of flats/maisonettes) and 54 for Priory, an estate with the lowest RTB levels of any traditionally built estate in the Borough. Whilst overall demand may have recovered in these estates since then due to affordability issues, the likely enduring point about them is that more residents wanted to leave them than move in, a situation of net outflow for applications/transfers. They were unpopular. 35 A contributor to this report recalls in his time as a councillor in Sandwell the attitude of homeless people at his advice surgery towards Windmill Lane and Galton Village in Smethwick, estates undergoing well-advertised and multi-million pound Estate Action investment in the early 1990s. Galton Village was still known locally as the concrete jungle and the reaction of people in an apparently desperate housing situation was, I don t care about that [the housing investment] Please don t send me down the Jungle. 36 A contributor to this report recalls in his time as a councillor in Sandwell the attitude of homeless people at his advice surgery towards Windmill Lane and Galton Village in Smethwick, estates undergoing well-advertised and multi-million pound Estate Action investment in the early 1990s. Galton Village was still known locally as the concrete jungle and the reaction of people in an apparently desperate housing situation was, I don t care about that [the housing investment] Please don t send me down the Jungle. 131

140 A survey of potential movers in five estates in Dudley in 2001 (Figure 5.35) underlined the importance of kinship ties and roots in the area in explaining why people lived in these neighbourhoods. Some of them are highly insular. But 21% of people recently moving into them said they had no choice. This was also the case for 25% of people wanting to leave and was the single most important factor for this group. In Chapel Street, 37% felt they had no choice but to live there. In Wolverhampton CSR surveyed frequent movers 37 in four unpopular estates: Heath Town, Low Hill, the Lunt and Whitmore Reans. Among this group, 44% wanted to leave their current neighbourhood. Improving the reputation of the area was the second most important measure needed if they were to stay, mentioned by 37%. The issue of stigma also applies strongly to South Telford (Figure 5.33). A survey in the South Telford estates conducted by CSR Partnership for its final evaluation of the Madeley SRB3 scheme found that most residents believed their neighbourhood to be stigmatised (CSR 2002). Some 62% agreed their area had a bad reputation. This compares with 49% across 20 neighbourhoods in HMR, NDC and SRB areas researched by CSR. 37 This group was sampled from those (a) who have lived in their current home less than three years, (b) have moved more than once in the last five years, and (c) are likely to move in the next three years. 132

141 Figure 5.32: Estates of Fear Press 133

142 Figure 5.33: Neighbourhood Dynamics in South Telford Estates compared to Benchmarked Deprived Neighbourhoods The area has a bad reputation 49% 62% Neighbourhood is welcoming to new people 40% 58% Feels isolated and cut off from wider area My street is fine but rest of neighbourhood is bad Satisfied with neighbourhood 14% 37% 30% 49% 60% 70% Sutton Hill and Woodside, South Telford Average for 20 neighbourhoods targeted for SRB, NDC or HMRA Believe neighbourhood has recently got better 18% 13% Believe neighbourhood has recently got worse 36% 52% Source: Surveys conducted by CSR Partnership Environmental Issues and Crime The Black Country market studies and extensive other research conclude that the issues of crime and environment to be central as a market driver at local level. The survey of movers in Dudley found significant differences between individual estates, but the overall pattern of residents concern is clear: gangs of youths, vandalism, burglary, and bad neighbours. Litter and fly-tipping concerned Priory and Kate s Hill residents, and drugs were an issue in Chapel Street. Among the frequent movers in Wolverhampton wanting to leave their estate, anti-social behaviour, problem neighbours and improving general appearance was key (as well as stigma as we have noted). A quality of life survey of Telford s priority neighbourhoods in 2000 found Brookside to have the lowest neighbourhood satisfaction and the highest concern with crime and vandalism and the physical environment of the estate. In Woodside and Sutton Hill area satisfaction was higher, but crime and environment were still key issues. Local concerns tend to focus more on anti-social behaviour rather than violent crime. This is true for buyers of newly built housing surveyed for the Urban Living Pathfinder by CSR who plan to leave Sandwell or Birmingham at their next move, 18% of which would need antisocial behaviour to be tackled, ahead of improving local environments (7%). 134

143 5.5.5 Demography and Insularity South Telford is highly insular (Figure 5.33). The Madeley SRB survey found that only 40% said their area was welcoming to new people, the lowest figure among 20 deprived neighbourhoods surveyed by CSR (the average among this group for this issue was 58%). The South Telford estates had the highest proportion (37%) saying their neighbourhood felt isolated and cut off from the wider area (benchmark average 14%). The proportion claiming their street was fine but the rest of the estate was bad (49%) is second only to Langley, the giant peripheral estate in the Oldham-Rochdale Pathfinder (benchmark average 30%). The survey of residents on council waiting lists in the three Black Country districts suggests that the market has become insular and subject to demographic decline. Around 80% of those surveyed from the waiting list in Dudley already live in Council accommodation, either as a tenant, hoping for a transfer, or as a member of their family, wanting a Council property for the first time. This group of tenants tend to have stable housing histories with 67% having lived in one property over the last five years. Many see little choice in the wider housing market with only 6% being able to buy. This stable pattern of demand for the Borough is not replicated for the more difficult to let estates. The survey of inward and outward movers in the Dudley estates in Brierley Hill, Netherton and Central Dudley illustrated that people leaving the estates had relatively stable housing histories. However, those moving into the estates were far more volatile with 25% planning to move again within two years. The profile of these in-movers is very similar to frequent movers surveyed in Wolverhampton. Both surveys noted that frequent movers were most likely to be moving within a relatively small geographic area as people who are experiencing domestic pressures take advantage of the emerging surplus in housing to forge a solution through moving. Social processes also appear to be a factor behind the decisions by the more stable group of tenants to move out. This cohort of movers is, on average, five years older than inward movers and is frequently seeking larger accommodation. This suggests there is also a life cycle effect, which is influencing supply and demand in these areas. Moreover, although the Priory estate is distinguished by kinship ties and roots in the area these can be dissuade inward movement and indeed the estate had at the time of the research a negligible waiting list. Other estates with an established reputation for insularity include Wren s Nest in Dudley and Tibbington in Tipton. The sheer scale of these large traditional housing estates across the core of the Black Country suggests that they are on the cusp of serious decline as inflow of new tenants dries up. The South Telford estates can be seen to suffer similar problems insularity - in this case largely due to the physical isolation of the estates from the rest of urban Telford. 135

144 Figure 5.34: Neighbourhood Hierarchy in Black Districts: Council Waiting List Surveys Source: CSR/CURS Black Country Housing Market Studies

145 Figure 5.35: Neighbourhood Level Drivers in Black Country: Survey of Recent In-movers and People Wishing to Leave Selected Neighbourhoods in Dudley Source: CSR/CURS Black Country Housing Market Studies

146

147 5.5.6 Spiral of Decline The problems of population loss and economic decline inevitably manifest themselves unevenly within a large conurbation. Partly this can be seen in terms of overall market segments such as inner city compared to suburban fringe areas (these sub-markets are discussed in Chapter 3.0). In some places a self-reinforcing spiral is occurring. The manifestations of this decline were graphically highlighted in the Prime Minister s forward to the Social Exclusion Unit s seminal report, Bringing Britain together; a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal (1998): We all know the problems of our poorest neighbourhoods decaying housing, unemployment, street crime and drugs. People who can, move out. Nightmare neighbours move in. Shops, banks and other vital services close. A recent study has evaluated progress towards achieving the national strategy s goal that within years no one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live. Part of the study reviews research evidence to highlight the complex interacting elements of the cycle before concluding it can be simplified into three categories of drivers: Low levels of economic activity (high levels of worklessness, low levels of business activity); Poor housing and local environment, unstable communities (crime, fear of crime, antisocial behaviour, litter, graffiti); Public services and the delivery system (poorly performing education, health and transport services, regeneration programmes not achieving maximum impact). The following simplified cycle of decline in Figure 5.36 shows how these three drivers fit in the cycle. This can be seen to have happened in specific neighbourhood clusters and also in certain towns in the Black Country such as Bilston and Smethwick. The latter is considered as a case study below. 145

148 Figure 5.37: Spiral of Decline - Key Drivers Source: Prime Minister s Strategy Office and ODPM (2005), Improving the Prospects of People Living in Areas of Multiple Deprivation in England Smethwick Case Study Smethwick developed in the nineteenth century as a major industrial centre on the outskirts of Birmingham with factories located along its northern rail and transport corridor. Smethwick formed the new economy of the Black Country in the interwar years. Unemployment was down to below 4% by 1937 with the town enjoying a diverse and balanced manufacturing base around motor vehicles and modern engineering sectors. It could boast of being the most industrialised area of England, with 30 of its largest firms providing over 36,000 jobs. It was a compact, densely populated area with one the better urban forms of its time: for the most part a separation of housing and industry, good parks, amenities and public realm. It had a well-regarded unitary council. But it was nearly entirely built up (79%) with no vacant land and had to eventually locate council housing, schools and even a hospital outside its boundary. This meant that it could not evolve beyond its industrial heyday: its large employers disappeared from the 1970s but its industrial areas remained as shed-land or ramshackle low-value activity, inhibiting the development of new residential localities. This land scarcity was a factor in the management of post-war slum clearance, including their high-density maisonettes and tower blocks replacement in Cape Hill and Windmill Lane over 25 years, and the Galton Village estate (see Figures 5.51 and 5.52). Significantly, re-provision of housing was nearly entirely social renting until the late 1980s. The natural decline in household size over time, in combination with renewed piecemeal clearance pushed some of isolated northern housing areas such as Black Patch, hemmed by factories, rail and new arterial roads, below critical mass in terms of sustainability. The town s 60s council estates ultimately failed through a complex mix of issues including 146

149 poor design and the lettings policy of wider Sandwell, which acted to concentrate sociallystressed households in one place. In 1988 the council fought-off Government plans to impose a Housing Action Trust (HAT) for the Windmill Lane area. Significant clearance of the postwar replacement housing followed through an Estate Action programme but was arguably insufficient to alter the fundamental position and social mix of the neighbourhood, which remains highly stigmatised. The failure of this postwar restructuring has led to a 61% population loss in Windmill Lane. Across northern Smethwick, population density fell from 29 per acre to 15 with the resulting impact on the viability of local amenities. The rate of decline is similar to that experienced in the central areas of Manchester and Salford. The complex historical pattern of development of the current housing stock in Smethwick shows dramatic land use shifts including housing clearance and redevelopment. These issues manifested themselves in a comprehensive unravelling of the town s purpose and self-confidence. At the same time the loss of amenity seemed to be unremitting and included: Identity as a place, its own council and own parliamentary seat Bus company, local newspaper, cinemas, neurosurgery centre and local hospital, library, baths, grammar schools and sixth forms, fine buildings, even half its high street School closures including three secondary schools in the last 20 years through falling rolls Loss of industrial giants (Tangyes, Chance, Phillips, Birmid etc) Smethwick has been targeted by successive regeneration initiatives, some ephemeral but among the most important gains have been the remarkable improvement in education standards and the recent success of private new build bridgeheads such as Brindley Urban Village north of the canals. Unemployment has fallen sharply. Smethwick also has a large and diverse BME population dating back to the 1940s which is providing household growth, a local market for aspirational housing (and including BME buyers from Birmingham), and new businesses. A byword for racism after the infamous 1964 general election 38 ; live and let live attitudes are more commonplace, although the recent arrival of asylum seekers and refugees has created some tensions. The example of Smethwick shows the importance for the future development of the Black Country of the economic structure and urban form in shaping the fundamentals of an area. It also shows the need for effective service planning and urban management to understand and reflect the particular dynamics and changing function of towns (not just neighbourhoods) within a polycentric environment. There is little evidence that successive policymakers understood the drivers of change in Smethwick, although more recently the Smethwick 38 When its established Labour MP and putative Foreign Secretary in the incoming Wilson Government, Patrick Gordon-Walker lost his seat to a Conservative candidate using a vote Labour if you want a nigger neighbour slogan. 147

150 Regeneration Partnership has sought to develop a comprehensive plan for the town. It shows that places can pass from success to problem very rapidly. In places facing social disintegration, housing need comes to the fore; but paradoxically, does a starkly low-income town need much in the way of replacement low income housing? 148

151 149

152 5.5.7 Policy response: area-based programmes For most of the last century, the state had been heavily involved in deprived areas: through slum clearance programmes and public housing investment, and the development of public health, education, and transport systems. In terms of neighbourhood renewal and community-based regeneration, the focus on the regeneration of poor neighbourhoods only really began in the late 1960s when Government acknowledged that more general welfare policies were not reaching many inner-city areas. The subsequent restructuring of the major metropolitan economies such as Merseyside, Manchester and Birmingham-Black Country in the last 25 years fundamentally changed the nature of the policy intervention required at neighbourhood level. Local economic decline and unemployment was evidently contributing to rising crime and anti-social behaviour, poor health, family breakdown and social stress (Webster 1998). It was also causing particular neighbourhoods to decline rapidly. The first Urban Programme schemes had began in 1969, and were followed by a series of initiatives through the succeeding decades such as the Community Development Programme, Task Forces, Estate Action, City Challenge, Housing Action Areas, Renewal Schemes and Housing Action Trusts and the Single Regeneration Budget and New Deal for Communities. As a result of these policies, many neighbourhoods have benefited from physical refurbishment and some have also benefited from improvements to their management and social conditions. Programmes have been improved in the light of successes and failures and more effort has gone into seeing how different problems like crime and housing link together. It has become conventional in implementing it, and that the best policies work though genuine partnerships. At the same time policy has become steadily more focused on outputs and explicit targets rather than inputs and processes. The impact of area-based regeneration has been, however, at best patchy. Some of the reasons have to do with the impact of structural economic changes on towns and regions. Social changes such as the increase in lone parent households or the increasing availability and acceptability of illegal drugs have also had disproportionate effects in deprived areas. The importance of policy drivers has also been increasingly recognised, including badly designed programmes. A feature of this has been the limited level of analysis in both scheme development and evaluation including: Balance of cause and effect Identified market, social and policy drivers The form and function of target areas and their future trajectory without intervention The appropriate spatial area for intervention (single neighbourhood or clusters, districts, cross-boundary, sub-regional etc) The relationship with and impact on adjacent areas (displacement) Policy response: housing market restructuring 150

153 Following the last large-scale clearance programmes of the 1950s and 60s, steps to restructure areas characterised by obsolete and unpopular housing stock was initially confined to the social housing sector, through the introduction of Estate Action resources for the most problematic social housing neighbourhoods. Wolverhampton, for example, had seven schemes from the late 1980s, with mixed levels of success. 39 The enduring hallmark of Estate Action in the Black Country has been the removal of thousands of units, mainly flats/maisonettes. Entire estates have been removed through this and main programmes, especially in Sandwell which demolished 4,106 units in the 1990s alone. In the Black Country a particular feature has been the: Restructuring of the market through clearance and replacement housing, mainly by the private sector but also housing associations (RSLs) and through the investment activity of the Black Country Development Corporation (BCDC) Development of new markets through the application of national RTB legislation and also affordable home ownership through s106 agreements and shared ownership mechanisms. In Telford clearance has been far less important given the recent age profile of the stock, but in the South Telford estates the disposal policy of the Corporation through sales to tenants and also private landlords fundamentally transformed their profile. The impact of RTB in a conurbation formerly so dominated by council housing transformed the tenure profile, as noted above. In many estates, especially those with the most popular traditional family houses, more than half the stock has now been sold. Paradoxically, as the wider employment market went into decline from the 1970s, government policy had stimulated through RTB activity a new housing market that previously had been defined solely through need as expressed through local authority tenancies. The onset of right-to-buy sales from 1980 allowed a generation of working class people to buy their own homes. To date at least resale activity has been muted: many of these people are still living in the house they bought. Figure 5.37 shows sales levels as proportion of the private stock across the Black Country in The cold spots equate to many of the ex-council areas revealed by a comparison of the two tenure maps for 1981 and As noted earlier in this Chapter, the CURS/CSR market studies in the Black Country found a strong degree of localised movement within large parts of the Black Country, particularly the 1930s estates, which are characterised by very limited inflow. Longer-term the concern is a pronounced cohort effect as these original purchases die off. There is the expectation that in these estates, turnover and void levels will rise over time. 39 Subsequent national evaluations indicate that in a number of urban areas, Estate Action ultimately diverted resources into estates containing high-cost and unpopular housing types that could not be ultimately sustained. Although many schemes included local economic development activities these were too narrowly based to address issues of the social and economic problems increasingly concentrated in these often highly stigmatised estates. 151

154 Figure 5.37: Black Country Private Sector Transaction Rates 152

155 5.0 NEIGHBOURHOOD ANALYSIS This section presents the findings of a first-rung neighbourhood typology analysis for the Black Country Telford area. This has been based on an initial range of indicators - with some acknowledged weaknesses and deficiencies. Further work is needed to develop a wider range of indicators and to develop a fuller rationale for the inclusion or exclusion of indicators. This approach has been pursued in other areas where this approach to the development of a typology has been deployed. 5.1 Neighbourhoods and Housing Market Renewal A fundamental of Housing Market Renewal is that neighbourhoods are not the building block for Housing Market Renewal (as per neighbourhood renewal strategies, for example) but rather the end game. Cross-district, sub-regional drivers are the fundamental issue. Yet ultimately, it is at the level of neighbourhood that intervention is prioritised and the sequence of investment determined and operationalised. North Staffordshire Housing Market Assessment, CSR 2004 page 61. It s about why the people who live in these houses live in them. Stakeholder Interviewee, North Staffordshire housing market assessment, CSR, 2004 There are clusters of neighbourhoods within the Black Country and Telford in which poverty is concentrated. Even though the Black Country is itself a declining, low- income conurbation it also demonstrates particular forms of social and economic polarisation that impacts on, and is in turn exacerbated by, the operation of the housing market. This is due to the sorting effect of the residential housing market: a desirable area commands a price premium. Poorer households are clustered together in more affordable and invariably poorer quality locations 40. Within the Black Country and Telford there are consequently areas very badly affected by limited opportunities for residents, poor housing and local environments. So choice or the lack of it is an important aspect of defining function. There are a lot of factors at play in such choices, institutional, cultural and personal. This can relate to kinship ties, temporary situations such as being at university or the immediate exit route after relationship breakdown. Nevertheless identifying the characteristics of people who live there can reveal a great deal about the function of an area and how it is changing. It is possible to identify clusters of related neighbourhoods around which it may be helpful to develop a typology. This may be closely related to the existence of sub-markets, where issues of house type, tenure, condition and amenity and price combine with demographic and income issues to indicate some self-containment of clusters of neighbourhoods. Not surprisingly, some of these micro markets or neighbourhood typologies perform better than others. Finally, it should be noted that the requirement of the Black Country and Telford HMR prospectus is not to identify the most deprived neighbourhoods, important though this it. Rather it is to understand the form, function and trajectory of its micro-markets to address the weakest markets. Additionally, 40 Prime Minister s Strategy Office and ODPM (2005), Improving the Prospects of People Living in Areas of Multiple Deprivation in England, page

156 any intervention area has to be drawn not just around the weakest neighbourhoods but around an area that best contributes to mending the conurbation as a whole. 5.2 At Risk Areas The detailed identification of areas experiencing low or changing demand or broader market weakness, and the selection of areas for priority investment require the assembly and analysis of a full evidence base and the development of a coherent intervention strategy. However the 2004 work by CURS on the identification of the area of influence of the proposed Black Country-Telford HMRA also included a preliminary assessment of areas experiencing or at risk of experiencing these problems. This work was based on a well-established methodology developed initially by CURS for the M62 Corridor Study and utilised by ODPM to assist in identifying the nine HMR Pathfinders in The original index was updated to take advantage of 2001 Census and other more recent information, for example on dwelling sale prices. The index uses indicators which take account of: The age structure of the population, especially concentrations of older people; Patterns of economic activity, especially retirement and unemployment Concentrations of flats and terraced dwellings This was supplemented by the inclusion of additional indicators to take fuller account of lack of diversity in the housing stock and the existence of non-traditional housing forms (such as high rise flats or Radburn-type layouts). The approach used is described more fully in the report of this study 41. Figure 6.1 shows areas identified as at risk across the five local authorities using this approach. Each colour band represents a quarter of Census output areas (OAs) in the study area, with dark red representing the quartile at highest risk. Non-residential areas within at risk output areas have been screened out. All five boroughs have significant areas, which are at risk of low or changing demand or market weakness, but the overall pattern reveals: An almost continuous zone extending north west from the existing Urban Living Pathfinder area through Tipton and Bilston and the core of the Black Country to Wolverhampton; Other major concentrations of at risk housing in the inner core of Walsall, and in Dudley centre; and Smaller and more scattered areas of housing at risk in Telford and in the Black Country boroughs outside the core areas. 41 Ed Ferrari and Philip Leather (2004) The Black Country and Telford Housing Market Research, CURS, University of Birmingham. 154

157 Figure 6.1: Modified risk index, Black Country and Telford, 2004 S O U T H T E L F O R D B L O X W I C H W O L V E R H A M P T O N W A L S A L L B I L S T O N F R I A R P K. T I P T O N W. B R O M W I C H M o t o r w a y L o c a l a u t h o r i t y b o u n d a r y E x i s t i n g H M R A b o u n d a r y M o d i f i e d r i s k i n d e x L i t t l e o r n o r i s k H i g h e s t r i s k K i l o m e t e r s B R I E R L Y H I L L D U D L E Y S M E T H W I C K L Y E H A L E S O W E N Source: Ferrari and Leather (2004) However no index can identify all the housing market problems evident at local level, so the results of this index were examined in detail by officers from each of the five local authorities to introduce an element of ground-truthing. This is consistent with the previous use of the index by ODPM. The result of this was to identify some additional isolated areas, together with extensions to the areas of risk identified by the index. Even in the Urban Living area, the index does not highlight all neighbourhoods as experiencing problems of low or changing demand or market weakness. In this and other Pathfinders, the approach taken was been to identify an intervention area covering the main areas of market weakness together with associated areas, on the grounds that market weakness and associated problems can have an impact on neighbouring areas, or that interventions in these neighbouring areas can contribute to tackling problems in the areas which are worst affected. A similar approach was followed for the Black Country-Telford area, leading to the identification of two indicative intervention areas as shown in Figure 6.2. The largest of these forms a cross shape covering parts of the four Black Country authorities, extending from the Black Country core area towards Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and West Bromwich. This area includes a part of the existing Urban Living Pathfinder, which is contiguous with it. It would not, of course, be appropriate to include this directly within a Black Country-Telford HMRA, but Figure 6.2 shows the need to ensure that the activities of the proposed Black Country- Telford HMRA are closely coordinated with those of the Urban Living Pathfinder. 155

158 The second area, which is not contiguous with the proposed Black Country intervention area, covers central and south Telford. The problems of this area relate specifically to deprived former new town estates with particular problems relating to their design and layout. Three existing Pathfinders have intervention areas which are fragmented in this way but which share common characteristics of market weakness. Figure 6.2: Overview map of potential HMRA and main areas at risk. 156

159 5.3 Neighbourhood Function and Trajectory The brief for this project specified that additional analysis should be undertaken, going beyond the identification of at risk areas, to establish a more detailed picture of neighbourhoods within the Black Country/Telford area and to anticipate their future direction of change or trajectory. It was recognised that this exercise would need to be to some extent exploratory, and based on existing readily available data sources, as the timescale for the project did not permit the assembly of new data based, for example, on administrative sources such as Council Tax or local authority housing records. The approach used to this work, which was undertaken by CURS, was based on previous work undertaken for HMR Pathfinders in a number of other areas. This provided the benefit of being able to draw on past experience in the development of indicators and their analysis, and introduced a degree of consistency with similar exercises elsewhere. However, as with previous applications of this approach, the overall framework used has required considerable modification, in order to take account of available data sources, but more importantly in response to the particular characteristics of the Black Country Telford area. The approach used involved the assembly of data on a range of indicators at small area level covering the whole of the four Black Country boroughs and Telford & Wrekin. The spatial unit used for this exercise was the 2001 Census Super Output Area. Data for each indicator used was standardised to produce a consistent range of values. Indicators were grouped into four domains (following the approach used in deprivation indices such as the []). These were based on experience with the development of neighbourhood typologies in other areas. The domains were: Housing market weakness: indicators directly measuring aspects of housing market weakness such as low house prices, low house price increases, high vacancy levels; the presence of unpopular dwelling types, and the concentration of these dwelling types; Neighbourhood cohesion: indicators capturing the extent to which neighbourhoods are subject to change and instability, measured by indicators such as population movement, housing turnover, and crime levels; Social exclusion and deprivation: indicators measuring deprivation, low incomes, service quality, and unemployment Environment and access to services/employment: indicators measuring adverse features of environmental quality and ease of access to a range of key services, such as geographic barriers, travel times to key employment centres, and travel times to local services. Previous applications of this approach have shown that there are many practical obstacles to obtaining data on a number of these indicators. Data from the 2001 Census has provided a (relatively) up to date source of information on a range of direct or proxy indicators on a consistent spatial basis at small area level, and this has formed the core of the analysis of neighbourhoods in this study. The main disadvantage of using Census based indicators is that the analysis cannot readily be updated and revised over time, in order to give some indication of the nature and rate of change. However, for the purposes of this study, which is intended to explore the case for a housing market renewal programme rather than to assemble a definitive evidence base, this was not a major disadvantage. A further disadvantage of the Census is that it is restricted in scope, and in particular does not provide data on 157

160 house prices, incomes, access to services, and environmental quality. It was therefore necessary to turn to other sources for data on these indicators. As indicated above, it was not possible in the timescale for this study to assemble data from local administrative sources, although access was obtained to some already assembled administrative data. These sources would have provided wider and more up to date information on indicators such as housing vacancy levels, housing turnover and demand in the social rented sector, and benefit dependency. Past experience has shown that there can be problems both in securing access to this data and in aligning definitions and other data characteristics across local authorities. However this is a gap which future work should seek to fill. Additional sources drawn on for data included the Land Registry, local crime data sources, the IMD 2004, DfES education data. Finally a number of indicators such as travel times and accessibility to post offices were developed for the purposes of this study from raw data sources Housing Market Weakness This section looks at the picture provided by indicators of housing market weakness. This is the most directly relevant set of indicators (or domain) but it is important to set these results in the wider context provided by the cohesion, exclusion and environment/access domains. Figures 6.3 to 6.6 show indicators of housing market weakness across the Black Country Telford area and Figure 6.7 shows the housing market weakness domain score which combines these indicators. Figure 6.3 shows the proportion of sales in each neighbourhood which are below the regional lower quartile threshold price for This draws on individual dwelling transactions data provided by GOWM (2004 data was not available at the time of writing). If prices were even across the region, it would be expected that 25% of transactions would fall below this threshold. However, as Figure 6.3 shows, much higher levels (61% or more) are widespread across the study area, covering most of the at risk area identified above in Figure 6.2. In Telford & Wrekin a number of estates in south and north Telford are highlighted. This indicator clearly shows the widespread extent of low values across the Black Country and parts of Telford when set against regional norms which is one of the defining features of the market. 158

161 Figure 6.3: Low value dwellings sales Figure 6.4 shows price movements in the period since The picture here is less clear, as areas which have experienced relatively high percentage rises in prices include not just more peripheral neighbourhoods with high prices in 2003 but also scattered areas within the low price zones identified in the previous figure. Hence areas which have experienced relatively high price rises include central areas of Wolverhampton and Walsall, parts of West Bromwich, and areas within the Black Country core in between. As this indicator shows percentage change it may be that small absolute increases from a low 2000 price base appear more significant than they are in practice. Figure 6.5 shows vacancy levels in The vacancy indicator in the 2001 Census was not tenure specific and this indicator should ideally be updated from local administrative sources to incorporate vacancy data by tenure as soon as possible. High vacancy levels such as those found in parts of Manchester-Salford and in East Lancashire are not a feature of the Black Country-Telford area (or of the existing Urban Living Pathfinder), but some neighbourhoods were found to have high vacancy rates in These were parts of the Urban Living area, especially Smethwick, inner Wolverhampton, including areas of private and social rented housing, parts of Bilston, Darlaston and Wednesbury, inner Walsall, and Brierley Hill in Dudley. There is a more general band of neighbourhoods with higher vacancy rates between West Bromwich and Wolverhampton through the Black Country core, following the same pattern as, but less extensive than, the area of core low dwelling values. 159

162 Figure 6.4: Dwelling price change Figure 6.5: Vacant properties,

163 Figure 6.6 shows the index of dwelling tenure/type homogeneity. This is a composite measure of lack of variety in terms of dwelling tenure and type, focusing on less popular dwelling types. The higher the score, the more homogenous the neighbourhood. This indicator produces a scattered pattern which does not highlight the core at risk area. Neighbourhoods in Telford score highly on this indicator, but a wide range of neighbourhoods across the four Black Country boroughs also have homogenous housing. Figure 6.7 shows the overall indicator of housing market weakness derived from these indicators. This may provide a better overall picture which discounts the impact of anomalies in the individual indicators described above. Figure 6.7 highlights a large area of market weakness in the study area. This includes inner Walsall and areas of social rented housing to the north of the centre along the A34, most of the inner area of Wolverhampton and areas running south east along the A41 through the core of the Black Country including Bilston, Coseley, Wednesbury, and on to West Bromwich and the existing Urban Living Pathfinder area. There is also a southwards extension running more intermittently through Tipton, Brierley Hill and into isolated areas such as Lye. The analysis also highlights parts of South Telford. Isolated areas in Telford & Wrekin outside Telford itself are also highlighted but these are anomalies deriving from the index of tenure/type homogeneity which should be discounted. Overall, the housing market weakness analysis highlights an area which is very similar to that highlighted by the at risk analysis above. But within this overall pattern, the inner areas of Wolverhampton and Walsall can be identified as significant problem areas, containing a mixture of former social rented estates (now increasing mixed tenure) and former private housing areas (now a mixture of owner occupation, private renting and some social renting). Around these areas the analysis also highlights other former local authority estates. Beyond this, the key feature is what might be termed the disorganised nature of the pattern of market weakness. This reflects the historical pattern of Black Country settlement and the intermixture of older private housing areas of relatively poor quality and low value with local authority estates, many subject to increasingly high levels of tenure diversification through right to buy. Telford s pattern of problems relates to the history of its development, with the weakest areas in housing market terms found in estates built to poor standards with layouts which have proved unattractive located by historical accident mainly in the south of the new town area where most early construction took place. 161

164 Figure 6.6: Tenure/Dwelling Type Homogeneity Index Figure 6.7: Housing Market Weakness Domain 162

165 Neighbourhood Cohesion This section looks at a number of indicators which aim to measure the extent to which neighbourhoods are failing to function in a cohesive way. The main direct indicators which were available for this domain related to migration (as a substitute for more detailed data from local administrative records on turnover) and to aspects of crime. Figures 6.8 to 6.11 show the results for individual indicators and the overall cohesion domain score. There is a generally consistent picture across the whole of the four Black Country boroughs of population decline in the period, with a more mixed picture for Telford. Both crime indicators (Figures 6.9 and 6.10) show a similar picture with high levels of crime affecting most of the area of housing market weakness identified previously and lower levels outside this large core area in the more peripheral parts of the study area - especially on the western side of the Black Country boroughs. Taken together these indicators produce a pattern of areas with low neighbourhood cohesion which is broadly similar to the housing market weakness domain, both in terms of the area of general coverage and covers most of the at risk area and the smaller scale pattern within this which again highlights inner Wolverhampton and Walsall, West Bromwich and Tipton-Brierley hill. A larger area of Telford is highlighted which includes much of south and Central Telford but also Wellington and areas to the north of the town centre. Figure 6.12 shows the distribution of BME households in 2001 across the study area. The majority of, although not all, areas with a high level of BME population fall into the low cohesion domain, but not all areas with low levels of neighbourhood cohesion have a high BME population.. Other research suggests that in some cases the presence of strong BME communities promotes social cohesiveness. It may therefore be worthwhile to concentrate on areas of low cohesiveness without the presence of a significant BME population as the most problematic in terms of this indicator. One of the major areas with low neighbourhood cohesion which lacks a significant BME population is Telford, but large parts of the Black Country core and areas between Wolverhampton and Walsall also fall into this category. 163

166 Figure 6.8: Net in-migration 2001 Figure 6.9: Crime violence against the person 164

167 Figure 6.10: Crime criminal damage Figure 6.11: Low neighbourhood cohesion domain 165