Exploring change in local regeneration areas : evidence from the New Deal for Communities Programme in England

For many years, United Kingdom governments have instigated urban regeneration schemes. The 1998–2011 New Deal for Communities Programme was designed to change 39 deprived English areas, with regard to place-based, and people-based outcomes. Change data for all NDC areas from a common base-line can be used to establish relative rates of change across these neighbourhoods. Three sets of factors might help to explain why some areas saw more change than others: NDC Partnership-level activities; characteristics of NDC areas; and the wider local authority context. Results suggest that little change can be attributed to the characteristics or activities of NDC Partnerships themselves. This raises questions relating to the ability of regeneration schemes to instigate positive change, the limited nature of people-based change, the perverse role of educational spend and differential change across clusters of deprived areas.