ABSTRACT

It is the view of the Department of the Environment and other interested departments that these programmes are complementary and that they are all aimed at different parts of the problem. The enterprise solution therefore (so the argument goes) is but one of a number, that it is not intended to have an impact on all aspects of the inner city problem, and that there are a number of other programmes, not focused around economic regeneration, which will do the job that enterprise cannot (and was never intended to) do. The argument is less than compelling however, mainly for the reasons we outlined in Chapter 2. All recent publications on inner city policy have emphasised strongly and repeatedly that the government is wedded to the enterprise solution and that the use of the private sector to effect economic regeneration is their cardinal strategy for dealing with the inner cities. Indeed, if we extract those programmes dedicated to this strategy (including the Urban Programme within which the emphasis is now on capital projects and projects to promote economic growth) then there is little that is left.