Urban Studies, Vol. 43, No.

9, 1491 1509, August 2006

Urban Regeneration, Governance and the State:

Exploring Notions of Distance and Proximity
Phil Jones and James Evans
[Paper first received, January 2005; in final form, November 2005]

Summary. Recent debates over how to characterise the governance of urban regeneration are
developed in this paper using a detailed case study of Attwood Green in Birmingham, UK.
Specifically, the relationship between actors within governance networks and the state is
critically reappraised. The case study suggests that actors tend to display highly reflexive
understandings of government as multifaceted and multidimensional, simultaneously trying to
establish distance and proximity from different aspects of state power. The relationship between
those agents regenerating Attwood Green and local and central government is highly strategic,
manipulating transfers of financial, political and legal power through new organisational
configurations.

1.

Introduction

Urban regeneration underpins the UK governments commitment to create socially, culturally and economically vibrant cities (DETR,
1999, 2000; ODPM, 2003). Reflecting wider
shifts in planning (Healey, 1997; Innes,
1994; ODPM, 2001), urban regeneration is
characterised by collaboration between organisations with different qualities, motivations
and resources to tackle projects at larger
spatio-temporal scale (ODPM, 2004). Many
commentators have argued that this form of
urban development represents a qualitatively
different mode of governance in the UK, but
debate has rumbled on as to how best to
characterise it (Davies, 2003). A number of
approaches have been deployed in the literature, including regime theory (Brownill,
2003; Davies, 2001; Lauria, 1997), the new
institutionalism (de Magalhaes et al., 2002;

Jessop, 2001; Lambooy and Moulaert, 1996)

and network governance (Rhodes, 1996,
1997a; Stoker, 1999a, 2000) and the ensuing
debate seems to have coalesced around the
question of how autonomous and different
urban regeneration governance really is. The
role of the state is critical to these questions
and is highlighted by the recent critique of
Rhodes by Davies; where Rhodes (1997a)
contends that urban regeneration is characterised by an interdependent network of state and
non-state actors, Davies (2001, 2002) insists
that the state is still dominant, even if in a
highly mediated form.
While the role of the state constitutes a
critical point of debate within the urban regeneration literature, these questions resonate
with wider debates concerning neo-liberal
governance and the dynamics of power in
modern society (Corry et al., 2004; Giddens,
1988; Jessop, 1994). In this context, the state

Phil Jones and James Evans are in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. Fax: 0121 414 5528. E-mail: p.j.jones@bham.ac.uk and j.evans.2@bham.ac.uk. This
research was supported by the Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) through an EPSRC
Geographical Research Grant.
0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=06=091491 19 # 2006 The Editors of Urban Studies
DOI: 10.1080=00420980600749951
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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

can be a somewhat problematic concept.

Conflict between central and local government
has been a major feature of urban policy in the
UK for at least the past 25 years, demanding
a more nuanced articulation of the state
(Cochrane, 1993; Imrie and Raco, 1999).
Similarly, it is important to make distinctions
in the non-state sectorfor example, between
community and commercial interests. This
paper focuses on the power relationships
between different actors and the state, rather
than their substantive interests per se.
Using a detailed case study of an urban
regeneration project led by a housing association in Birmingham, UK, we illustrate how
the practices of key actors allow them to
remain independent from state power whilst
simultaneously working closely with it. We
conceptualise this relationship as the strategic
manipulation of distance and proximity.
The first section elaborates upon the theoretical debate that we wish to address, outlining
Davies critique of Rhodes network model of
governance and his alternative three-fold
typology of governance through government,
partnership and regime (Davies, 2002). We
attempt to find a compromise between the
positions of Rhodes and Davies, drawing on
extensive interview material from actors
involved with the regeneration Attwood
Green, a group of blighted housing estates
built in the 1960s.
The paper moves on to explore how the
project was put into practice, paying particular
attention to how new organisations and
relations are forged to both access and insulate
against the state. It is argued that the coexistence of distance and proximity frustrates
the oversimplistic equation of a more advanced
stage of governance with increased separation
from the state. We conclude by discussing the
implications of this analysis for understanding
the governance of urban regeneration.
2. Governance and Urban Regeneration
in the UK
A recurring theme in the literature upon
planning practice is the inability of government to act, either because too much emphasis

is placed upon policy tools (Owens and

Cowell, 2002), or due to the difficulties of
achieving co-operative action (Malbert,
1998). Co-operation between the different
tiers of government and external agencies is
now, however, central to urban regeneration
practice, both in the UK and elsewhere
(Swyngedouw et al., 2002). Thus the notion
of governance has become critical. Understanding the governance mechanisms that
create successful urban regeneration is essential to achieving the goals of sustainable
development (Couch and Denneman, 2000;
Rydin et al., 2003; Thurstain-Goodwin,
2001) and community revival (Atkinson,
2002; Cameron, 2003). Narrowly defined,
governance refers to the process of delivering
government; however, the term has taken on a
series of more complex meanings referring to
competing theories of exactly how this
process is being undertaken (Newman, 2001).
Much of the discussion in the UK context
has emerged from the ESRCs Local Governance Programme, which ran during the
1990s (Rhodes, 1997a; Stoker, 1999a, 2000).
A central figure in this research programme
was R. A. W. Rhodes and it is his (1997b,
p. 53) assertion that governance refers to
self-organizing, interorganisation networks
[original emphasis] that frames much of the
debate on governance in the UK. Davies
(2002) has, however, critiqued Rhodes
claim that governance by network is undermining the power of the state, suggesting
that those things Rhodes calls networks are
better described as partnerships, with asymmetrical power relations still favouring state
control. This point will be expanded on
below; however, it raises the issue of the
somewhat fluid uses of the term governance,
which Rhodes himself acknowledges as a
problem with his stipulative networkcentred definition. We need, therefore, to
give Davies (2001) three-tier typology of
governance brief consideration to elaborate
on his critique of Rhodes.
Each tier in Davies schema relates to
different degrees of co-operation and (inter)dependence between the various scales of
public and private sectors. Governance by

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URBAN REGENERATION

government sees the state as the primary

agency for delivery of services, with little
or no interaction between government and
businesses. Governance by partnership sees
local partnerships forming between government and business, but purely as mechanisms
for delivering government policy. The third
tier identified is described as governance by
regime, where government and the private
sector work together in long-term, synergistic
networks that develop spontaneously, rather
than in response to a policy initiative. Such a
typology carries with it the inference that
normatively better modes of governance lie
at the top of the scale with regimes.
The first tier, governance by government,
can be seen as a traditional, Fordist approach
to the delivery of policy aims. In terms of
UK regeneration policy, this coincided with
the model of inter and post-war redevelopment where negotiations between central and
local governments resulted in funding structures that allowed local authorities to demolish slums and build large numbers of
socially rented houses (Malpass and Murie,
1999). The relatively strong position of local
authorities in the immediate post-war period
was gradually undermined by an increasingly
dictatorial centre. This shift in the balance of
power was reflected in the introduction of
systems such as Estate Action in the 1980s,
where local authorities were pitted against
each other in competitive bidding for scarce
central government funds (Pinto, 1991).
Despite the shifting power balance, the principle of government-to-government working
remained dominant.
Even in the 1980s, however, there were
signs that this model of governance was
starting to be undermined. Following the
dominant discourse in US urban regeneration,
partnership with the private sector to achieve
mutually beneficial (and otherwise nonattainable) goals, started to be viewed as
increasingly desirable. Cinderella projects,
such as London Docklands, were held up by
neo-liberal Conservative governments of the
1980s and early 1990s as models to alleviate
the effects of urban de-industrialisation
(Loveless, 1987; Massey and Allen, 1988;

1493

S. Ward, 2004). At a more local scale, the

regional Training and Enterprise Councils
(TECs) were established to develop relationships directly with business and voluntary
agencies to tackle unemployment (Thomas,
1996). Local government was largely
bypassed in this process, with the private
sector being asked to engage with centrally
established, locally based quangos (Smith
and Beazley, 2000, p. 860; Thornley, 1991).
In the post-Thatcher era, there was an
attempt by the Major governments to reengage local authorities as an agent in partnerships, particularly in broadening regeneration
to encompass more than the creation of economically viable property (C. Evans, 1999).
Key to this was the City Challenge initiative,
launched in 1991 (Fearnley, 2000). City Challenge required partnerships to be set up
between local authorities, the private and
voluntary sectors to bid for resources. While
this meant that local authorities were now
actively seeking to work in partnership with
external agents, one can argue that this
merely reinforced the power of the central
state, as the Department of the Environment
would only provide funds to partnerships
and projects that met with its approval
(Malpass, 1994). Similar critiques were
made of the subsequent Single Regeneration
Budget (SRB) challenge fund programme
and, indeed, central government had hoped
that the regional TECs might take the lead in
some bids to the fund, although in practice
local authorities remained the dominant
actors (Hall, 2000, p. 8).
The ESRC Local Governance Programme
was undertaken within the context of these
mid 1990s initiatives. Schemes like City
Challenge were undoubtedly centrally funded
and directed and thus would fall under
Davies classification as partnership governance. Rhodes (1999) and Stoker (1999b)
both comment, however, on the fact that the
original aims of centrally established partnerships were often subverted by the practical
realities of making partnerships work. The
capacity of the state to control these organisations was, therefore, diminished, suggesting
that the distance between policy and practice

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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

allows self-governing interdependent network

structures capable of effecting real change to
form out of centrally established partnerships.
Davies claims that insufficient distance
exists between the state and the partnerships
to allow the characteristic of self-organisation
to emerge between the different organisations
involved to create Rhodes network. There
are some parallels here with Wolchs (1990)
notion of the shadow state. Warrington
(1995) examines UK housing policy in the
mid 1990s, in particular the centrally directed
shift towards the greater use of housing
associations in the provision of socially
rented housing. For all the rhetoric about
creating a more pluralistic welfare system,
Warrington argues that in reality the centre
has increased its degree of control over the
operation of policy, with the housing association mission of providing good-quality
housing to those in need having been made
subservient to (in the shadow of) a central
government obsession with value for money
(Warrington, 1995, p. 1356).
Davies (2002, p. 306) takes particular issue
with Rhodes (2000a, p. xiv) claim that
networks are now pervasive and that the
challenge for local government is not steering
policy via management arrangements, but
rather the need to develop skills in diplomacy to build their relations with other
agents in the governance network to achieve
mutual goals. Davies instead sees short-term
partnerships predominating, set up in response
to (and often funded by) central government
initiatives with a particular goal in mind
(for instance an area-specific regeneration
programme). For example, Davies has
argued that NDCs are characterised by
conflict between residents and regeneration
professionals caused by divergent understandings about the purpose of the programme
and the role of each party in it (Davies, 2004,
p. 580), due to the hierarchical prescriptions
for regeneration (p. 581) set by a bureaucratised central government. The predominance
of partnerships in governance that Davies perceives is to some extent supported by Pierre
(2000, p. 3) who suggests that the emergence
of governance reveals not a decline in the

state, but rather its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. This said, the differences
between this position and that of Rhodes
seems to be on matters of nuance rather than
substanceindicated not least by Rhodes
(2000b) contribution to Pierres volume.
If partnerships in practice merely reinforce
the power of the state, how then to achieve the
kind of autonomous self-organising qualities
that Rhodes looks for in his theory of governance via networks? This brings us to the
third stage in Davies typology, governance
by regime. Urban regime theory, upon which
Davies is drawing here, has produced a
similar flowering of literature in the US as
governance has in the UK over the past 15
years or so. Clearly, the pioneering work of
Elkin (1987) and Stone (1989), examining
regimes in Dallas and Atlanta respectively,
are profoundly influenced by the very different organisational structure of urban politics
in the US. Both attempt to investigate how
long-term, stable relationships are built
between the city government and local
private interests in pursuit of mutual goals.
Thus, despite the different political context,
there is an obvious appeal to those wanting
to see networks emerge between public and
private actors, but without the mark of
state-centredness perceived in partnership
arrangements.
Regime theory has been criticised for
failing to link clearly the behaviour of agents
in the regimes to the wider institutional
context, with various attempts to modify
these ideasfor instance, in combination
with regulation theory (see the various contributions to Lauria, 1997). Given that much of
the work on governance focuses on agents
within the institutional context, there is
obvious value in attempting to bring these
ideas together with regime theoryhence
Davies notion of regime governance.
Davies, however, argues that this form of
governance is yet to emerge in the UK and
juxtaposes his findings on regeneration in
practice with the qualities he perceives as
characterising regime governance. Regimes
are themselves predicated on the formation
of networks and the blame for the failure to

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URBAN REGENERATION

build the necessary network to achieve regime

governance is attributed to insufficient distance between the agents of regeneration and
state power (Davies, 2001). The resulting
lack of autonomy allows the state to exercise
often indirectlycontrol over the network,
using it to fulfil its own policy aims.
Davies (2003) dismisses the idea that
regeneration coalitions in the UK might be
described as regimes, suggesting that this
use indicates a lack of conceptual clarity. His
three-fold typology, however, forms a useful
distinction between Rhodes conceptualisation of network governance and the actual
regeneration organisations to which Rhodes
applies the term; organisations that Davies
dismisses as mere partnerships tainted by
asymmetrical power relations. At first
glance, the case study discussed in this paper
might look very much like the kind of partnership governance, indirectly controlled by the
state and established to fulfil its aims, that
Davies has critiqued. Certainly, the mechanism by which Optima Community Association
was establishedthe Estates Renewal Challenge Fundand the body through which it
is regulatedthe Housing Corporationare
products of and controlled by central government. Indeed, in terms of Optimas specific
regeneration programme, the local authority
has a significant input, particularly in terms
of land use planning and public open space.
A closer inspection of exactly how and why
this body came into existence and the aims it
now pursues, however, starts to destabilise
the somewhat dismissive label partnership
and points the way to a position which
acknowledges Davies critique while suggesting that distance from state power alone is not
automatically the route to more advanced
forms of governance.
3.

Case Study Methodology

Following recent research in this area

(for example, Cameron, 2003; Couch and
Denneman, 2000), we deployed an intensive
qualitative case study methodology to access
the socio-political relations between actors
involved in a regeneration project. This

1495

approach was used to capture the regeneration

process as it was actually happening on the
ground (Krueger and Agyeman, 2005).
As Yin has argued (1989), case studies
bring a range of factors into a common analysis, but perhaps more importantly, the depth of
understanding they offer is increasingly seen
as critical in analysing wider socio-political
processes (see Flyvbjerg, 2001). The methodology was designed to capture the social
relations between various actors and organisations, and yield a thick qualitative description of how the people and organisations
involved with the project came together and
interacted. As Adger et al. (2002) argue, far
from producing overspecific accounts, thick
description provides a basis for general
comment by identifying the connections and
general patterns that are characteristic of a
certain context. Given the emphasis of sustainable development and planning reform upon
context-sensitive institutional solutions
(Adger et al., 2002, p. 1095), this approach
to urban regeneration seems justifiable and
the specificities of the case are amply and
sensitively detailed in order to produce
conclusions that can inform wider debates.
The research project was implemented over
a six-month period, following an exploratory
phase to identify the key actors and institutions. Following Cassel and Symon (1994),
our initial population was generated from a
stakeholder analysis of the organisations
involved. Individuals were identified within
these organisations from web-searches,
formal job descriptions, contacts developed
through previous research projects (J. Evans,
2003; Jones, 2004a) and, as the project
progressed, by snowballing contacts from
interviewees to form the eventual sample.
Semi-structured interviews were used to
capture formal and informal aspects of the
project and to allow flexibility in accordance
with the varying time-constraints of different
interviewees (Brenner et al., 1985). Approximately 10 30 minutes were used to focus
upon standard questions concerning the
project, followed by a relatively unstructured
discussion of variable length used to explore
opinions and less formal aspects of the

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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

project and interviewees involvement. This

more intensive engagement with the interviewee was critical in generating a thicker
description of the socio-political relations
between actors, organisations and the state.
Questions focused upon how the current
organisational configuration and working
relationships were framed by professional
biographies and interweaving personal
connections that often reached back tens of
years. Secondary data were collected in the
form of background information and documents. This entailed a combination of archival
and records-based research and electronic
research via the Web. Key unpublished
documents were often accessed through
interviewees.
In total, 20 interviews were conducted,
yielding approximately 25 hours of material.
All key stakeholders were interviewed and
the process was considered complete when
saturation point (when interviews begin yielding the same stories) was reached. The data
were coded (Manning and Cullum Swann,
1994) and this technique was used to trace
what Glaser and Strauss (1967) term emergent themes.
4. Attwood Green and
Renewal Challenge Fund

the

Estates

The Attwood Green area (see Figure 1) has

experienced a number of redevelopment
cycles. The Bath Row central redevelopment
area (see Table 1) was, at 191 acres (77 ha),
the smallest of five major slum clearance districts identified by Birmingham City Council
in 1941 (Sutcliffe and Smith, 1974, p. 224).
In 1945, the Public Works Committee were
told that only 429 of 4306 houses in the area
were judged fit for habitation (Manzoni,
1945). As part of the Citys post-war reconstruction, this area, the main part of which
was later renamed Lee Bank, was completely
cleared and rebuilt by the early 1970s. Architecturally, the scheme was a fairly unremarkable local government reworking of Le
Corbusiers towers in the park model, using
high-rise (up to 22 storeys) to offset partially
the loss in population caused by the creation

of a large new area of open space (Jones,

2004a). By the mid 1980s, the area was suffering from all the typical indicators of inner-city
declinehigh incidences of poverty, social
deprivation, crime and unemployment
(Birmingham City Council, 1999). Housing
allocation policy, which reflected central
government policy, and centrally dictated
financial constraints for the maintenance of
estates, particularly under the Housing Investment Programme (HIP) after 1977, were
major contributory factors to the rise of
these kinds of problems by the mid 1980s
(Audit Commission, 1986).
Estate Action, which developed out of the
Department of the Environments Urban
Housing Renewal Unit in 1985, introduced
the notion of local authorities bidding in competition against each other for top-up funds
in addition to their HIP allocation. Birmingham City Council became quite adept at
acquiring additional resource in this fashion.
By the early 1990s, it was estimated that
regenerating Lee Bank would cost in the
region of 200 millionclearly impossible
to fund out of the annual HIP allocation of
around 50 millionand local residents
were among the loudest voices calling for an
Estate Action bid (Dennis Pearce, Optima,
26 October 2004). The years of decline had,
however, generated a certain amount of cynicism to the point where some residents
believed that the City was deliberately
neglecting the estate to drive residents out
and make it easier to sell the land to a developer (local resident, 28 October 2004). Lee
Bank was, in fact, entered into the Estates
Action competition unsuccessfully on two
occasions in the early 1990s and the City
was confident that a third bid would succeed
when the Department of the Environment
scrapped the scheme (Simon Kimberley,
Chief Executive, Optima, 17 May 2002).
With Estates Action gone, the next large
source of new resource for individual estates
was the Estates Renewal Challenge Fund
(ERCF), but this was very much a politically
contentious policy. ERCF can be conceived
as an attempt to give additional impetus to
the programme of widespread voluntary

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URBAN REGENERATION

1497

Figure 1. Location of the Attwood Green estates. Source: Derived from UKBorders/Digimap.

transfer (LSVT), predicated on moving the

ownership of housing stock from city councils
into the private socially rented sector. The
campaign by Lee Bank residents for an
ERCF bid gained the support of the Housing
Committee Chairman Dennis Minnis in 1996

but was voted down by the majority Labour

group in the Council, which opposed any
transfer of local authority resources on
principle (Dennis Minnis, 26 July 2001).
The (New) Labour government elected in
1997 did not, however, scrap the ERCF as

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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

Table 1. Park Central area, changes in name

Bath Row
Lee Bank
Central Area
Estates
Attwood Green
Park Central

1941, City Council slum

clearance scheme
1958, City Council rebranding
of Bath Row area
1990s, City Council designation
for the estates of Lee Bank,
Woodview, Benmore, Five
Ways and the Sentinels
1999, Optima rebranding
of Central Area Estates
2001, Crest Nicholson
redevelopment of Lee Bank

some had expected. A second proposed bid for

Lee Bank was subsequently approved
by Birminghams councillorsnot least
because of a highly effective resident
campaign to embarrass the council into
action. A billboard poster reading Welcome
to Lee Bank, Birminghams Slum Quarter
was perhaps the most memorable feature of
that campaign, but there were also various
sit-ins and roof-top protests led by a highly
organised group of residents (Anon., 1996;
Collins, 1998; Taylor, 1998; Weaver, 1996).
The bid was successful and, following a
yes vote by tenants, Optima Community
Association was set up with some 46.6
million of central government funding to
take control of Lee Bank and four neighbouring estates; this area was rebranded Attwood
Green.
Even before Optima had been set up, the
City Council won a concession on the
DETRs limit of a maximum 10 per cent
demolition in any ERCF scheme. Optimas
Director of Property, who had been an investment manager with the City Council prior to
transfer, commented
Birmingham did its usual, Were not
having any of that, were bigger than that,
well tell you what we need and well
twist a few arms to get what we want
(Dennis Pearce, 26 October 2004).
Birminghams sheer size as the largest urban
municipal authority in the UK has given it a
history of squeezing concessions out of
central government (see, for example, Jones,

2004b) and in this case the fledgling community association was given more flexibility
than would have been the case without the
Citys intervention. Optima have gone on to
set up a major redevelopment programme
for the estate in partnership with the City
Council (which still owned a large portion of
the land) and with the private developer
Crest Nicholson, rebranding Lee Bank as
Park Central. In doing so, Optima has gone
far beyond the original remit of demolition
and refurbishment that was envisaged by the
ERCF mechanism.
There is no space here to explore comprehensively the complexities of the interorganisational linkages that have been formed since
the transfer of ownership to Optima community association; the relationship between
residents and Optima alone would take up a
paper in its own right. Instead, the analysis
will focus upon the deployment of strategies
to create both distance and proximity in
the relationship between Optima and the
state as the project unfolded. This will be
used to interrogate Davies claim that truly
self-organising networks can only form
where the network manages to achieve real
independence from the state.
5.

Distance

The way Optima came into being is critical to

understanding its subsequent role in the regeneration process as an innovative structure of
local governance. Not only were the residents
opposed to joining a pre-existing housing
association, they were reluctant to be
constrained by the term housing at all.
Instead, they wanted the community to be in
the lead and favoured the label community
association. During their time working for
Birmingham City Council, Optimas Chief
Executive and its Director of Property had
already developed the legal framework for
community-based companies, with pioneering
projects on the Stockfield and Pype Hayes
estates. Legislation defines a public company
as having 50 per cent of its business through
the council, while a business with less is a
private company with a public influence.

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URBAN REGENERATION

Optima was set up as a private company in

that it was limited by guarantee instead of
shares, with one token share worth 1, but
registered as a social landlord under the
Local Government Goods and Services Act.
It was thus regulated, but by the Housing
Corporation rather than the City Council.
Because the resulting organisation was regulated
by charity law, but with the option of having
non-charitable subsidiaries, it was neither
A council puppet or . . . a private profitmaking organisation . . . It just sat nicely
right in the middle. So it had all the
makings of an organisation that could do
whatever you wanted it to do really.
It could be charitable, it could be noncharitable, it could do housing, or it could
do community (Dennis Pearce, Director of
Property, Optima, 26 October 2004).
This flexibility was seen as essential to
ensure that Optima could avoid some of the
restrictions placed upon local authorities by
central government. The innovative organisational structure of Optima distanced it from
government in order to give it the freedom
to take on a full, community-led, regeneration
project. This need for distance was explicitly
acknowledged by the ex-local-authority
people who staffed the upper echelons of
Optima and who were the most familiar with
the constraints of central government on
local authority initiatives.
This process of distancing was related to a
number of potential failings on the part of
the local authority, which were seen as critical
to making the project work in the long term.
For instance, the redevelopment plan drawn
up by the city just prior to transfer was
viewed as insufficient
Its a case of an urban architect putting [the
local authoritys] thoughts down on a piece
of paper. Okay, the starting-points not that
bad, but have they any thoughts about the
sustainability of the area? Have they ever
thought about the marketing of the type of
property thats going to be put up there?
And does that fit with the overall masterplans, or are they actually going to

1499

dictate? In other words, is it a blueprint or

is it a masterplan? A masterplan we can
live with (Dave Thompson, Optima, 9
August 2004).
The potential problems associated with local
authority control drove Optima to put further
distance between themselves and the local
authority by recruiting a range of private
companies into partnership.
An important part of this distancing process
was the creation of virtual distance between
the project and local authority
Having worked on the outside, I didnt
particularly want the whole area branded
Birmingham City Council from a sales
point of viewa development sales point
of view. Because having worked on the
other side, its kind of off-putting (Dave
Thompson, Optima, 9 August 2004).
At a very early stage, Lee Bank and the other
four estates that were transferred to Optimas
ownership were given a new overall brand
name Attwood Green, distancing them from
their designation as the Central Area Estates
when run by the City Council.
This rebranding process continued with the
recruitment of PRP Architects to draw up a
masterplan for the development. PRP found
themselves essentially redrawing the existing
local authority plan and adding a certain
amount of detail to it. As the lead architect
on this project commented, it rapidly
became obvious that
What they were looking for was somebody
to work up a document, in partnership with
themselves, that would become a delivery
brief. Whereby they could go to the
marketplace and actually get a developer,
delivery partner, on board to do the work
(Kim Hitch, PRP Architects, 15 September
2004).
In essence Optima needed a document . . . to
go out into the marketplace (Kim Hitch, 15
September 2004). It was this document,
rather than merely the Birmingham City
Council branded Supplementary Planning
Guidance, that was presented to developers

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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

when they came to tender for the redevelopment project that Optima proposed. The
developers that were eventually chosen,
Crest Nicholson, went on to continue this
trend, rebranding the regeneration of the Lee
Bank area as Park Central. When asked if he
would have been more wary about getting
involved in the scheme had it been led by
the City Council, Crest Nicholsons Project
Director for Park Central agreed, commenting
that

refurbishmentthe new-build component

required that additional resource be raised.
Describing this original concept, Optimas
property director recalled that

Housing associations in general are much,

much better at managing tenants than
local authorities. Considerably better. So
weve no real worries partnering up with
them. Theyre pretty good at what theyre
doing now (Stephen Boid, 4 August 2004).

The problem was that various public assets on

the site, most notably the parks and school
land, remained under the control of various
departments in the City Council. This fragmentation did not lend itself to the creation
of the land portfolio that Dennis Pearce envisaged. By contrast, the council wanted to

The model of Estate Action and City Challenge redevelopments elsewhere in Birmingham was demolition of the worst properties,
improvement of the remainder and piecemeal
land sales (usually to housing associations) for
local redevelopment. This was the kind of
project envisaged by tenants as they
campaigned for transfer and, indeed, largely
what the ERCF mechanism was designed to
do. By the time that PRP had become
involved, however, Optima were proposing a
very much more comprehensive redevelopment. The generation of unforeseen outcomes
can be seen as a key characteristic of network
governanceand one of the most important
aspects of the Park Central project, its integrated vision for the regeneration of an
entire area, was one such unpredicted result.
It is worth tracing its emergence in more
detail in order to understand the precise form
of the relationships between different actors
in the process.
The property transfer took place from the
city to Optima in 1999. At this stage, 12
sites had been earmarked for demolition and
subsequent sale to private developers. Five
land sales with some commercial potential
around the edges of the site were intended to
raise 4 million in order to fund the
new-build programme on 10 other sites.
This revenue was critical because the
ERCF resource only funded demolition and

I looked at it and I thought, Well that

doesnt help at allselling off an acre
there, selling off half an acre here. Need a
bit of land strategy here. I came up with
the idea of packaging it up into a bit of a
portfolio (Dennis Pearce, 26 October 2004).

keep it simple. Well sell that site off,

well get half a million for that, well let
them do what they want to do on there
and heres half a million towards your
four million. That is where all schemes
have failed in the past . . . It never gets
joined up (Dennis Pearce, 26 October
2004).
Optima put the land valuation, packaging
and sales process out to competitive tender.
Originally, this tendering was to be split into
three parts, with residential and commercial
agents dealing with the marketing of those
respective packages and a marketing agent
to change the image of the area. GVA Grimleys property consultancy were originally
commissioned to undertake the commercial
land sales, the Councils own valuers were
to deal with the residential, and the HROC
Group were to tackle the rebranding.
Grimleys already had a proven track record
of urban regeneration in Birmingham city
centre and it quickly became apparent that it
made more sense for them to market all the
property. Indeed, with Grimleys on board,
the vision for the area began to change quite
dramatically, as it became apparent between
themselves and Optima that the piecemeal
sales strategy of an acre here and there
would not get the best value for the land.

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URBAN REGENERATION

When presented with the original proposals

for land sales, Stewart Dawson of Grimleys
recalled
sitting at the interview board where they
were grilling people to say how would
you be better than anybody else?. And
basically we said to them We can do all
this, if thats really what you want, but if I
were you I wouldnt do it like that.
Youve got it wrong, dont do it like that.
Approach it as a holistic project and see if
you can find a developer to work with you
to help deliver the benefits of a major
rather than piecemeal development
(Stewart Dawson, 8 October 2004).
One rationale for this approach was the stigma
attached to the area, manifested mostly in a
sense that Lee Bank, with its widespread
social deprivation, was not a safe place to
be. As one contractor said, When the invitation to quote for this work came around, you
didnt want to get out of your car, you didnt
want to unlock the car doors. If these
problems were addressed in a comprehensive
way, then the ability to generate value out of
the land was much greater
As an area gets better the values that you
can achieve for the individual units go up.
And then the way a land value appraisal
works means that land values should be
higher. But if youve already sold the
land, your opportunitys gone (Stewart
Dawson, Grimleys, 8 October 2004).
Obtaining this value from the land was
essential to achieving a virtuous spiral, nourished by the incremental success of each stage
of development, and the perception that,
because it is a comprehensive development,
things are going to change. Because these
receipts were ring-fenced around the Park
Central development, this maximisation of
income over time was also seen as a key
component of the projects longer-term
sustainability.
This story prompts us to ask what mechanisms drove evolution of the process from
Central Estates Area (City Council action
area), through Atwood Green (housing

1501

association redevelopment), into Park

Central (collaborative urban regeneration
project). One of the most important factors
driving the holistic approach was undoubtedly
the medium-term financial independence of
Optima, which meant that they did not need
to undertake rapid land sales to raise shortterm revenue.
At that time we were funded through ERCF
and we were cash-rich, because obviously
while the regeneration work was going on,
the refurbishment work was going on and
wed already had funds to go out and do
that. So wed got money in the bank, so to
speak, and . . . we decided that given this,
we didnt need capital receipts up front
(Dave Thompson, Optima, 8 September
2004).
This made Optima the key power-brokers in
the regeneration process, without the kind of
temporal pressures and budgetary constraints
imposed on local government, and unbeholden to the financial muscle of commercial
interests. Essentially, what Grimleys supplied was the mechanism that would allow
the site to be regenerated in a comprehensive,
holistic way, but that would also allow Optima
to turn its fiscal strength into a share of the
financial benefits of an improving area.
Values will go up from a low base . . . So if
you can stay in for the ride as landowner,
you get the benefit of increasing receipts,
if you like, which you and the developer,
who is part of this team, know are going
to go back into here to be reinvested
in . . . you know theres going to be some
fantastic parks and facilities here. Which
will help to drive values higher. So you
get more money, so you can invest more
and so on (Stewart Dawson, Grimleys, 8
October 2004).
Optima realised that the best return for them
was going to be in the long term, not only
because they would benefit from the virtuous
spiral, but because they would have more
control over the regeneration process. As
part of the tendering process, Optima
requested potential developers to offer them

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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

a percentage of the final selling price and

guarantee a minimum payment after four
years if the development had stalled for any
reason.
Constraints imposed by central government
mean that no local authority could have done
what Optima have done. The Park Central
project itself was an unforeseen outcome,
going far beyond the originaldemolition
and refurbishmentaims of ERCF. True,
Optima is regulated by the Housing Corporation, which Politt et al. (1999) regard as a
clear instrument of central government
control. Walker and Jeanes (2001) argue,
however, that the Housing Corporation is
dependent on housing associations for expert
input on innovation and best practice.
Hence, there is sufficient room within the
highly regulated housing association sector
for the kind of original and innovative
approaches taken by Optima to move
beyond the confines of the regulator
indeed, taking a small example, being seen
by the Housing Corporation as a model in
moving forward with the Egan agenda on partnering with the construction industry (Dennis
Pearce, Optima, 26 October 2004).
Park Central was the response of the
network assembled to address the regeneration to the specific challenges and opportunities of the area. Further, this response
depended upon the creation of actual and
virtual distance between the project and the
City Council, using a number of private partners to help execute these strategies. These
dynamics are returned to in the discussion.
However, it is now time to examine the contrary trend of proximity in the relations
between the regeneration team and local
authority.
6.

Proximity

While the main players behind Park Central

carefully created distance between the
regeneration process and the local authority,
finding space for their own agenda within
central government regulation, they fostered
increasingly close links with various
individual elements within the local authority.

The central relationship is that between

Optima, residents living on Optimas
estates and Birmingham City Council in its
role of co-landowner on the site. Indeed, this
question of landownership was crucial as
without it
in terms of planning, in terms of Section
106 obligations, you know all of those . . . wed [Optima] have just been a
developer. Whereas because they [City
Council] were sharing in the scheme, they
were forced to come to the table and
make key decisions (Dennis Pearce,
Optima, 26 October 2004).
Optima was created by the City Council, using
a community association model which had
been pioneered by the City Council, and its
senior management posts are staffed by
former City Council employees. Despite this,
without a land interest on the estate, the
Citys planners would have given no special
consideration to the redevelopment Optima
was working on. In this particular case, the
very close ties between state and private
actors, manifested in the landownership
pattern, have been critical, not least because
otherwise the project would have been a
great deal more difficult to get through the
planning process. Clearly an Optima-led
regeneration was something that the Citys
housing officers and politicians had worked
towards, but the fact that the statein this
case, the local stateis no monolithic entity
is critical here. As one player stated,
Youve got Education, youve got Highways
and youve got Housing, predominantly,
looking for their bit (Dave Thompson,
Optima, 8 September 2004). Two particular
areas were planning control and parks and
leisure, and they reveal key aspects in which
proximity was critical to the realisation of
Park Central.
Optima part funded a full-time planning
officer in the City Council, who dealt with
all the reserve matters arising as part of the
Park Central development proposals. This
collaborative approach was seen as quite
innovative, as the planners

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URBAN REGENERATION

have fortnightly meetings with the architects, and on alternate Thursdays meetings
with Crest and Optima, and some of the
residents to talk about planning applications and issues. So there is regular feedback, which I think is very rare (Rob Wells,
Birmingham Local Planning Authority, 23
August 2004).
The benefits of this close working relationship
were apparent talking to the Crest project
co-ordinators and the various consultants.
For example, a number of the phase 2
apartments had problems with the standard
assessment procedures (SAP) ratings for
energy efficiency and U-values for heat loss,
due to both the high levels of glazing and
the reliance on electric box heaters. One consultant who worked on part of the project
noted the benefits of close relations with the
city planning department
So I said what if each apartment block were
considered as a single building with individual U-values and SAPs, would the city
wear it? And they accepted the idea of a
block average. It should be by residence,
so on an apartment-by-apartment basis. To
be quite honest, I think they went with it
because they were as desperate as we
were (Chris Cooper, Cooper Research, 13
August 2004).
This is not to imply, however, that all
elements of the council were automatically
co-operative in advancing that regeneration.
The power of the Parks Department frustrated
attempts by PRP Architects to make any
radical changes to the distribution of land
when drawing up their masterplan (Kim
Hitch, 15 September 2004). Once Crest
Nicholson were on board, however, the
pressure for a quite radical new design for
the area became impossible to resist. Had
the parks in the area been transferred to
Optima along with the housing land, the
large reduction in the amount of public open
space which is now taking place on Lee
Bank as part of the regeneration might well
have faced determined and influential opposition from the Parks Department. With

1503

ownership retained by the City, the Councils

own Landscape Planning Group have been
commissioned to design the new park area
as it appears in the Park Central plan. The
Parks Department have become yet another
actor actively working for the project, rather
than simply objecting to elements that contravene their interestsin particular, the
reduction in public open space. Interestingly,
however, at the start of the regeneration
process, the Parks Department undertook
their own consultation with local residents
about what they wanted from the park,
rather than rely on Optima (i.e. the community association) to undertake such a survey
(Jonathan Webster, Landscape Planning
Group, 25 August 2004). Thus there was still
some sense of a distance (perhaps underpinned by lingering distrust) between these
two actors, at least during the early phase of
the project.
Another example of how proximity to the
City Council has been of benefit to the
scheme was the question of land assembly,
which is critical to large regeneration projects
(Adams and Hutchison, 2000). Although there
had been relatively limited right to buy exercised on the estate, there were a small
number of owner-occupiers. For an unambiguously private developer, such individuals
could have caused major problems in terms
of land assembly for a comprehensive redevelopment (Ball et al., 2003), but the City Councils interest in the site because of land
ownership meant that
with the City there on board and involved in
the future, the developer could see that the
Citys compulsory purchase powers could
be available, indirectly, to the developer.
So if there was a Mr Awkward sitting somewhere then . . . properly compensated, of
course, that goes without saying. But the
land assembly issues, to some extent go
away (Stewart Dawson, Grimleys, 8
October 2004).
When the redevelopment project went out to
tender, although Optima had gone to some
pains to distance itself from direct City
Council involvementnot least through

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PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

having PRP draw up a separate masterplan

there were clearly some major benefits of
having the City Council involved. This potential to share in the power of the state, in this
case over compulsory purchase, but at the
same time hold itself distanced from it,
made what Optima were proposing extremely
attractive to a developer, thus maximising the
potential benefits to the organisation and
residents.
7. Discussion:
and Power

Partnerships,

Networks

Davies has critiqued Rhodes network governance concept not least because he does not
believe that the claim that these networks
are pervasive stands up to an analysis of
regeneration in practice. In turn, he identifies
distance from the state as a key factor in
implementing a regime governance model.
The analysis of the Park Central scheme
suggests that the regeneration process was
characterised by selective distancing and
close engagement with the state. While the
network around Optima realised a number of
explicit aims of government policy at both
central and city level, it also generated the
kind of unforeseen outcomes that Rhodes
looks for in network governance. This
section explores how this strategic engagement blurs the boundaries between what
Davies characterises as partnerships and
Rhodes as networks.
The Park Central story prompts some
discussion of how it fits into Davies typology
of government. In terms of Davies critique of
partnerships as government by other means,
while the power of the state was undoubtedly
important, it was, for example, far from being
a dictatorial central state imposing its policy
aims upon the other players. Central government policy transmitted through the ERCF
mechanism did not determine how Grimley
and Optima worked together to develop an
integrated regeneration plan. So it is perhaps
justifiable to claim that Park Central transcended the rhetoric of partnerships that
inevitably leads to the reduction of aims to
those of the state. Indeed, the avoidance of a

partnership controlled by the local state lay

at the heart of Optimas early distancing strategies and the way in which the process
evolved went beyond the city councils original vision for the area. While Davies (2004,
p. 302) claims that partnerships are characterized simultaneously by the diffusion and
augmentation of State power, the Park
Central example suggests that diffusion does
not automatically equate with augmentation.
Rather, the manipulation of organisational
networks to create distance from certain
aspects of the state and proximity to others
allows transfers of legal and political powers
from the state without ceding control.
While the importance of local networks and
experience is apparent in the Park Central
example, and these relationships may form
the basis for future developments, they do
not display the coherence and longevity of a
regime. The coherence is limited to the
particular Park Central projectthe kind of
area-based regeneration that Davies argues is
more like partnership than a regime-type
growth coalitionbut is characterised by a
long-term rather than short-term collaboration. So we would agree with Davies that
there is no regime at work here. Davies
does, however, argue that the kind of
network characteristics that would need to
develop to form a regime is dependent on
the actors involved distancing themselves
from the power of state. Here, we differ from
Davies; the case study presented appears to
indicate that building the governance
network is as much about harnessing certain
powers of the state to achieve (sometimes
unforeseen) outcomes as it is about creating
distance to escape the dictates of state control.
This tension between distancing and proximity frustrates Davies distinction between
partnerships and networks, and begs a
more nuanced understanding of the role of
the state at both local and national levels in
the governance of regeneration. There is a tendency towards an overly monolithic conception of the state, in particular concerning
its dealings with external agencies. This
becomes all the more evident when dealing
with state power as it is exercised through

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URBAN REGENERATION

local government, which constitutes a multifaceted set of organisations in its own right,
each driven by differing aims and strategies.
A conceptualisation of local government
needs to capture both the fracturing of the
public and private spheres and the multilevel
processes within which it is situated
(Lowndes, 2001). Related to this, more recognition is needed that actors are reflexive about
their relation to government. The case study
gives examples of senior personnel working
for Optima, some of whom are former local
authority employees, actively creating real
and virtual distance between the community
association and the local authority, through
transfers of resource, organisational innovation and image manipulation. As Jessop
states, a socially adequate interpretation of
governance requires an understanding of
Reflexivity as well as recursivity. In other
words, it would address agents capacity
to engage in learning and to reflect on institutional context (Jessop, 2001, p. 1230).
The autonomy of Optima from the constraints
of local government and demands of the
commercial sector was critical, and depended
upon both distance and proximity. This autonomy was originally facilitated by the mediumterm financial independence of Optima, but
was achieved through a series of reflexive
material and discursive strategies (in partnership with private actors) to create an
institutional space for Optima to operate
within. Once this space had been created, it
allowed the network of organisations and
people to be formalised in the regeneration
project. It is perhaps worth noting that the
other actors involved tended to regard
Optima as fully representing the interests of
local residents. Whether or not residents
would agree with this view is moot, but it
does raise crucial issues concerning the
inclusion of less powerful constituents in
multi-agency regeneration.
Thus Rhodes (2000a, p. xiv) is correct that
the challenge for local government is not
steering policy via management arrangements, but rather the need to develop skills
in diplomacy to foster these relations with

1505

other agents in the governance network to

achieve mutual goals. These networks comprise the pre-existing relations between key
actors and the specific experience that they
can bring to bearas highlighted by the
thick description of Park Central and the
professional histories of those involved.
There appeared to be a certain latent
regeneration capacity among actors and
organisations in the city that was critical in
facilitating the formation of the Park Central
network.
Network-style governance emerges when
this is formalised in specific projects that are
clearly delimited in space and time. The
mechanisms (K. Ward, 1996, p. 429) by
which this occurs depended upon establishing
more formal relationships between different
actors at certain stages (J. Evans, 2006). This
can be seen as a form of strategic work,
whereby actors explicitly seek to manipulate
distance and proximity to state power
through novel institutional arrangements.
This strategic work is critical to the autonomy of regeneration projects in all contexts
and, while some aspects of the network may
partially disintegrate over time, others
become ossified, lending them relative longevity and autonomy (as in the maintenance
arrangements for Park Central). Optimas
success in creating its own institutional
space was necessary to create a level of
autonomy that elevated the project beyond
Davies specification of partnership governance, generating quite unforeseen outcomes.
However, this critical extension in space and
time was facilitated within the framework of
selective proximity with certain power
structures of the state. The flexibility Optima
had in how the ERCF resource was spent,
for example, relied upon the negotiating
power of the local council with central government. The estate land was part-owned by
the council, giving them extra leverage over
a process which was, however, driven by the
community organisation. Thus while autonomy relies on distancing from the legal
constraints of the local state, freedom of
action often depends on gaining access to
key state powers.

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1506
8.

PHIL JONES AND JAMES EVANS

Conclusion

This paper has presented a detailed case study

of an urban regeneration project in order to
explore theoretical debates surrounding the
role of local government in governance. It
has been argued that Davies three-fold typology of government by government, partnership and regime is unsuitable to explain the
pattern of governance displayed by the
Attwood Green/Park Central regeneration
project. Rather than requiring only distance
from the state to generate innovative regeneration solutions, the analysis offered highlights
the importance of both distance and proximity
between regeneration projects and state power
in achieving the kind of autonomy that Davies
and Rhodes are looking for from regimes and
networks respectively.
This tension between distancing and proximity frustrates Davies distinction between
partnerships and networks, and begs a more
nuanced understanding of how state power is
articulated in regeneration governance. Strategies to insulate the regeneration network
against the actual and perceived influence of
the state allowed the transfer of legal and political powers without ceding control. The selforganisation of networkswhether through
the creation of new bodies such as Optima,
or the enrolment of other organisations into
the regeneration networkwas critical in
achieving this. Thus, while we would agree
with Rhodes that self-organising interorganisational networks are already part of the landscape of British government (Rhodes, 1997,
1999), their relation to the state is complex
and multifaceted, and certainly not easily
caricatured as governing without government.
Specific regeneration initiatives draw upon
pre-existing expertise and relations while also
drawing in new actors to create consciously a
governance network capable of delivering the
project. While Davies (2002, p. 302) critiques
Rhodes for not sufficiently problematising the
process of network formation, Davies is
himself guilty of oversimplification when he
claims that we are merely dealing with statedriven partnerships. With an innovative organisation like Optima, although it may have been

established by a Whitehall initiative, what the

organisation is now doing runs ahead of
central government policy.
Just as it is necessary to be wary of falling
into oversimplified oppositions between partnerships and networks, so it is important to
avoid ossifying the distinctions between
Davies and Rhodes. There are dangers in
extrapolating from individual case studies
and Park Central is unusual in that it is a
very well located site, very large and fortunate
in having attracted some highly innovative
and talented personnel. Nevertheless, Park
Central indicates that the practices of governance are evolving extremely quickly and there
is an academic imperative to use these experiences to refine our theoretical toolkits. Indeed,
Davies (2004) has recently suggested that
partnerships represent a transitory disjuncture
between changing forms of governance.
Broadening out these concerns, the Park
Central example suggests that further research
is needed to understand the rapid diffusion of
governance in regeneration projects.
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