Stakeholders, Programmes and Strategies

Abstract

The English urban renaissance conducted over the last two decades was made possible largely due to the technical and financial direction of the national regeneration agency English Partnerships (EP), merged in 2008 into the new Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), which reports to the Department for Communities and Local Government. The complex and broad mandate of English Partnerships was to promote economic and social development through policies of land transformation aimed at improving residential, environmental and infrastructural conditions, with four areas of intervention: sustainable regeneration; social housing; the strategic reconversion of brownfield sites; the promotion and dissemination of best practices in terms of urban redevelopment; and quality of design and environmental compatibility. The tasks and programmes of the old agency, often administered in partnership with other agencies or ministries, were transmitted in full to the new Homes and Communities Agency, which also took on those formerly assigned to the Housing Corporation (housing policies) and to the Academy for Sustainable Communities (research and training), both now merged into the new entity.