Communities and Local Government

• Communities and neighbourhoods
• Respect
• Regeneration

Communities and neighbourhoods

Regeneration

Our £38 billion Sustainable Communities Plan demonstrates our commitment, across Government, to create better places to live - renewing existing towns and cities and creating new places to live that will stand the test of time. One of the priorities is to focus on deprived communities where we know that people experience more anti-social behaviour. But regenerating buildings alone will not deliver the Respect programme. To ensure that we improve quality of life and get value for money from the considerable investment we are making, we must make sure that anti-social behaviour does not undermine it. Over the next 12 months we will ensure that all Government-funded regeneration schemes are accompanied by approaches that promote good and tackle bad behaviour.

English Partnerships (EP) is the national regeneration agency helping the Government to support high quality sustainable growth in England. It is a key delivery body for the Government's Sustainable Communities programme which addresses housing shortages, homes for key workers, affordable housing and the problems of abandonment and decay. It also has a major role in the regeneration and remediation of brownfield land. EP's overall aim is to achieve high quality, well designed, sustainable places for people to live, work and enjoy. English Partnerships is considering how it can work with partners to put respect at the heart of the places it is investing in. Increased community engagement, improved design processes and longer term management of neighbourhoods and estates are the ideas being taken forward.

The Thames Gateway stretches for 40 miles along the Thames Estuary from the London Docklands to Southend in Essex and Sheerness in Kent. It is a national priority for regeneration and the Government is taking a holistic approach in this area. The aim is to create sustainable communities where new and existing residents will be part of an economically vibrant growth area, rich in social and environmental diversity.

We recognise that truly sustainable communities are based on the values of equality and cohesion, and are places where people come together through shared activities and spaces, where they behave respectfully towards each other and their neighbourhood, and where differences are accepted and valued. We are therefore considering how mutual respect and cohesion can be placed at the heart of the Thames Gateway and other growth areas.

Looking forward even further into the future, the draft plan for the delivery of sustainable communities objectives related to the 2012 Olympics regeneration programme states that we will "identify measures to deliver wider Communities and Local Government objectives including Respect within the Olympic programme". Respect messages will be strengthened as the plan evolves.