Project Development: an Overview

	Project manager Rob Moore: "It pays to invest in quality"

Milestones and lessons learned during four years of project development.
Between 1960 and 2000, Newcastle benefited from every existing national urban regeneration programme. Despite this, the decline of the West End couldn't be stopped. With hindsight, there were several reasons: the activities were too small-scale; they focused on the short term (5-7 years); they respected the existing urban structure too much; and they failed to take into account the direction market forces were taking. So a different approach was adopted in 1999/2000. The keywords were: long term, evidence-based (using both qualitative and quantitative research); holistic (taking socio-economic factors into account as well as the physical environment); and partnership (the Council could not make a difference just on its own).

A master plan was developed using these criteria. It was an ambitious plan, giving the West End a new heart (shopping, education, health care), and envisaging an extended subway line, the demolition of some 1800 houses and the construction of 3000 new ones in Scotswood alone.

So far, so good. But as this plan was being developed, other developments got in the way. A change of senior management in the Council resulted in a lower priority for urban regeneration; the allocation for granting permission for building new houses was exhausted, the City had to take account of the regional planning perspective rather than just what was within its own boundary, and finally, the plan failed to pass the scrutiny test of its major funder, the Market Regeneration Pathfinder scheme. The Audit Commission, who appraised the whole Pathfinder programme across Newcastle and Gateshead and then allocated funding, stated that the ambitious building plan for Scotswood would not succeed, as there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that this approach was either realistic or appropriate. In addition, there would surely be a lack of market interest caused by thirty years of decline and stigma, and even if they were able to sell the houses, it would disrupt the existing regional housing market. In the latter scenario, the problems of Scotswood might be solved, but at the cost of creating new Scotswoods elsewhere.

So in 2004, a revised approach to the regeneration of the West End was formulated and given the official seal of approval (an account of this approach can be found in the section 'Current Affairs').

Lessons learned
- Get the governance of the project right: pay heed to the interests of, for instance, regional authorities and the local population, and make them take responsibility for the final outcome.

- Provide a robust analysis. The original West End approach was indeed evidence-based, but relied too much on a comparative analysis: money and effort were directed towards the areas that were suffering most. It would perhaps have been preferable to take a closer look at the drivers of decline and the drivers of improvement in order to take advantage of existing market potential.