§ 45. Mr. LordTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures were taken by his Department to encourage the regeneration of inner-city areas in 1989.
§ Mr. MoynihanDuring 1989 my Department continued to develop and implement a comprehensive range of programmes and initiatives directed at inner-city regeneration. Substantial progress was made during the year.
A new urban development corporation was established for Bristol to bring the number of third generation UDCs to four. Private investment committed across all UDC areas passed £7.3 billion.
City grant, introduced in the previous year, began to make a significant impact on the redevelopment of run-down urban areas. By the end of 1989, over 100 capital investment projects had received approval for a total of £85 million grant; these will lead to private investment of £360 million and the creation of 13,500 jobs.
The urban programme continued to support a wide range of projects to strengthen local economies, improve the environment and tackle social problems in deprived urban areas; it is estimated that about £260 million was spent on a total of more than 10,000 projects.
747WUnder the enterprise zone initiative, Sunderland borough council and the Tyne and Wear development corporation were invited to prepare planning schemes for an enterprise zone in Sunderland.
To encourage further the disposal of unused or underused land, new registers of such land, including inner-city sites, were made publicly available by public sector owners on 31 October under codes of practice issued by the Department.
The annual report on the Department's inner-city programmes for 1988–89 will be published shortly.