The New Right and neighbourhood regeneration

This paper seeks to add to an understanding of the impact and significance of the New Right through an evaluation of neighbourhood regeneration policy in England during the 1980s and 1990s. This area of public policy has been seemingly been little researched being passed over for more high profile urban policy initiatives such as Enterprise Zones and Urban Development Corporations. Such studies largely demonstrate a translation of broad New Right principles into practice. Recently, however, attention has begun to turn to less obvious approaches and a more sensitive and contradictory image has developed. Far from consistency and coherence, evidence of actual impact upon the ground is beginning to point to a more eclectic situation. While there may have been broad principles that could be identified with the Thatcher and Major Governments throughout the 1980s and 1990s, such abstract tenets allowed significant room for evolution and pragmatism, which may, in part, help explain the varied impact of many initiatives. Examination of neighbourhood regeneration policies throughout this period demonstrates an evolution of initiatives and ideas that were influenced by a number of factors. Two stand out in particular. First, a temporal dimension: policy and thinking evolved due to external influences (such as opposition from local authorities and tenants) and the impact of policy itself. Second, a spatial dimension: policy outcome varied in different places. The implications of this are that a more open and less reductionist perspective on the New Right needs to be taken and that studies of the period should highlight a more diverse and contextualised understanding.