PM’s blitz on housing estates to ‘emulate Packington’
January 2016
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has announced plans to regenerate 100 of Britain’s worst sink estates in a move to tackle poverty.
Commenting in the Sunday Times (10/01/16) he put forward his vision for social reform, which includes tackling the problems that can be associated with housing estates (crime, anti-social behaviour, prevalence of drugs and segregation from the wider community) at the heart of this.
The Prime Minister stated that the government will ‘work with 100 housing estates in Britain, aiming to transform them’, starting by building ‘a list of postwar estates across the country that are ripe for redevelopment’.
The government will commit £140m which will ‘pump-prime the planning process, temporary rehousing and early construction costs’. Cameron states that in some case ‘this will simply mean knocking them [estates] down and starting again’.
Rydon’s ongoing redevelopment of Packington Estate with the Hyde Group in Islington is referenced in the Sunday Times as an exemplar of what the government wants to achieve: ‘The aim is to emulate the overhaul of the Packington estate in Islington, north London, where 538 structurally unsound flats were replaced by 791 houses and flats, 491 of them for social rent’.
Packington was also used as a backdrop for several of the news channels, including SKY News, to illustrate the plans of what might be done.
Given the wide acclaim and success of Rydon’s continued work at Packington, it seems very appropriate that it has been chosen to illustrate what can be achieved.
latest News
- Mettle&Poise Highly Commended at 2017 Evening Standard New Homes Awards May 2017
- Back to the future at new Mulberry Park school and community hubMay 2017
- £3,600 Raised for CRASH as Ferrari wins at Buckmore ParkMay 2017
- Shaping Lives branding drives Rydon’s commercial fleetMay 2017